The text came in while I was sitting in my old bedroom in my mothers’ house in Washington DC. The phone rested in my hand. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. A snake hiding in my house in Charlottesville! I scrolled down to a photo of the little critter which my housekeeper sent. It really wasn’t very big. There it was stuck solidly to one of those horrible sticky rectangular mouse traps. Its whole body fits…
One of my children asked about anti-body tests. Are they reliable? Some others talked about crazy stories they heard about people not being allowed to attend weddings of friends unless they had the shot. Some frightened friends of parents would not allow them to come into the house without a mask. The stigma against the people who have not had the shot is out of all proportion to the danger. If one did not know better, one would think that…
One of my children told me recently that they believe the government is their friend and there to help us through the current virus. This child thinks their mother (me) is selfish and stubborn because I do not believe that. It makes me feel somewhat frustrated and a little bit hopeless. There is so much fear of “the virus”. It is pathological. Truly scary, to me, is the idea that a lot of people believe that we as humans are…
Suddenly the hot day seemed to stall. The sun disappeared. Everything got quiet and very still. Looking up into the sky, I was shocked to see it suddenly dark. Storm clouds crowded where the brilliant blue had been only minutes before. The entire sky was suffused in charcoal and shades of grey. Such majesty in that infinite depth defied reason and shocked us with the change from light to dark. The sheer power of thunderclouds which seemed to crash against…
Can you imagine not knowing how to swim by the time you graduated from college? Helen Dow couldn’t swim. But her finance Dr. William J. Hale wanted her to learn. Reading my grandparents’ letters to each other has been enlightening.It is hard for us to realize that swimming was not something that a lot of people knew how to do in the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Helen Dow had never learned how to swim. But Billy…
It started with constant yelping. There are several types of barking styles employed by my dogs. This was an “I have him cornered!” bark, not an “it’s a snake!” bark or the squealing call which indicates running after a squirrel or a deer.My three dachshunds are very different from each other, though all are extremely lovable in that way that dachshunds alone seem to know how to be. Magnus is sweet-tempered and awfully patient until it is time for a…
All summer of 1916 Helen wrote Billy Hale every day except on the days when they saw each other. While he was absent she spent a lot of time painting china. He visited her in Midland, which was a company town, with little else to offer the visitor. She writes of longing to see him, to kiss him, but not too much. She is clearly passionate about him, but circumspect in her writing about this part. They were still chaste…
My grandmother Helen Dow Hale was smart and funny. She was one of six children, the oldest one in her family. She had loads of friends when she went to college. She was young and vibrant and full of hope and plans for the future. She graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1916. While there, along with studying and joining a sorority Theta of Alpha Phi and making new friends, she fell in love with her…
I sent out a joke, which I would think was obvious to all, but it caused a stir among my grandchildren. Perhaps it was a bit crude. It is almost certainly exaggerated. However, it is based on the truth that George Floyd was an addict and thief and in death he can do no more crimes. However, his family made out very well being given 27 million dollars by the state and getting 13 million from a go fund me…
This country needs to wake up while we still can. Today I discovered something that I had not realized before. Like most people who tend to think other people care about many of the same things they do, it never occurred to me that anyone would not want to do research on their own. Perhaps these “other people” care about the exact opposite. But at least they “care” about something. Or at least that is what I used to think….
It is hard to believe that this is my second year of being “motherless”. Because I had a mother for 77 years it is rather strange NOT to have one. Most people lose their mothers at an earlier age. Most people mourn their mother’s passing. But many were so old, tattered, gray, and wrinkled by the end that there was little left. They may have been ill for years or incapacitated. Not mine, though. She was vital until she was…
Easter morning was shot through with sunlight and still a bit chill from the night cooling. But the promise of a warm day was in the air along with the scent of flowering trees and shrubbery. What a Day!!!! Lucky for me, because 24 people were expected for lunch at 1:00 pm. All of my five children and their mates, plus my ex-husband and his wife Julie and ten of our grandchildren (plus 3 young men who were dates for…
He won the Orange County point to point twice, and he barely knew how to ride. He spoke with a slow drawl as if he really was a cowboy. But he was just a city boy from Washington DC. The West called to him though. He spent years living in New Mexico and Colorado. Everything about the west appealed to him. He loved the openness of the land and the people. The Indians (Do I have to say Native Americans?)…
She was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1918, the year of the Spanish Flu. Her mother died of the disease when my mother was 8 months old. And as a baby, she also had the Flu, but she survived it, which may have given her extra immunity. This may explain the extraordinary health that she enjoyed during her long life. February 22nd was her birthday. This year she would have been 103. She died only about 14 months ago,…
2020 has been an incredible year for me. It started with me living in my mothers’ house after her death in November because we needed to get things organized and arranged as the estate settles.When my mother died at 101, my calendar was full. To distract myself from watching her decline, I involved myself in many different organizations. Once Mother was gone, there was no reason to stay there. But I did not realize that at first because my forward…
