Hang Your Christmas Pickle

I’ve been thinking about the old Christmas pickle. Yes, you read it correctly; Christmas pickle. This is the ornament of most extraordinary significance found on your Christmas tree. Just ask anyone who was swift and observant enough to spot it first on Christmas morning! The history of Christmas pickles is almost more fascinating than the […]

Memorial Day Memory

It is Memorial Day weekend, again. As usual, my thoughts turn to those I have loved with all my heart, who served our country with bravery and devotion, and are no longer with us. It is more challenging, and a bit more painful every year, because we Baby Boomers are, sadly, winding down. And so […]

Let’s Picnic In The Cemetery

Rest in peace is a common enough expression. Everyone knows what it means, and why someone would say it. And they certainly know where the resting place is located; that being the local cemetery. But what may not be known, is not so very long ago, people gathered in graveyards to also dine and visit […]

Her Ghost: Heaven On The Beach

She was a bright, shiny star in the 1930s and 1940s. In those days, Ginny Sims sang her way into everyone’s heart via radio, singing with the Kay Kyser Orchestra. In time, she developed her own radio shows, and hit the silver screen, becoming a huge star in “B” movies. Sims made her last movie […]

Words To The Wise

I am so shocked, I can hardly believe what I now know. It started when I was in high school. In those days, I read Seventeen Magazine, faithfully. It was my source for all things pertaining to teen life, body awareness, and boys. Every month the best part, which I savored, was an article, or […]

Her Story, Her Way

I want you to help me write my obituary. Sure. What would you like to say? Okay, it has to begin with, I was born on a high and windy hill. No. You weren’t born on a high and windy hill. What are you talking about? I was born on a high and windy hill. […]

Robert Frost And His Gift Outright

There are moments in time which never, never leave us. We look back, and view crystalline images, clear, sharp, perfectly defined. For those of us who witnessed the inauguration of John F Kennedy in January, 1961, there was much to remember; but nothing and no one was so stirring as Robert Frost. The upper grades […]

I’m A 12th Man, And I’m In!

Last year, as the Seattle Seahawks were departing for New York to play in Super Bowl XLVIII, I wrote a post declaring I am a 12th Man, and attempted to explain to those who are not from the Pacific Northwest, or are Seahawk fans, just what that means. Tomorrow is the playoff game between Seattle and […]

Of Orchards, Smudge Pots, And Friends

If you lived near fruit groves in California or Florida way back when, you probably remember smudge pots and smudging. I believe the practice fell out of favor in the 1970s, but for any of us who grew up around orchards in the 50s, smudging was a part of our cold weather experience. It was […]

R E S P E C T, Find Out What It Means To Me

January 23, 1986 saw the first ceremony for its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Held in the Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Ballroom in New York City, those whose music had been rooted and grounded in gospel, country, R&B, blues, and rockabilly, merging into rock and roll, gathered to be acknowledged and honored. They, and […]