National Siblings Day
April 10 is National Siblings Day. Although I have written many posts about siblings—my siblings, my mother and her brother, my father and his sister, and my own children as siblings—I have never posted specifically about National Siblings Day. National Siblings Day is a day to celebrate one’s siblings. It was established in 1995, so […]
The Family That Waterskis Together . . .
I’ve written before about the idyllic summers I spent as a teenager on Coeur d’Alene Lake. And I’ve written about waterskiing. I recently found some old pictures of those days—pictures of my father, mother, brother, and me all waterskiing. As I looked at these pictures, I remembered how each of us skied. We each had […]
My Memories of Albany, Oregon
I wrote last week about using Albany, Oregon, as a setting in my current work-in-progress. Writing that post caused me to remember my own experiences in Albany dating back to my preschool years when our family lived in nearby Corvallis, Oregon. My dad was getting his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University, located […]
Did My Younger Siblings Ever See Santa?
I’ve written before about how my brother and I got to see Santa Claus when he visited our home one evening just before Christmas. I’ve also written about when my children got to see Santa at their grandparents’ home. My son took the experience in stride, but it took my daughter some time to get […]
A Story I’ve Mentioned Before: Dropping My Brother on the Porch
November is National Family Stories Month. So we should tell our stories to family and friends. Stories make us who we are. Or sometimes we hope stories don’t influence our lives. Here’s a story I have mentioned before, and it is one I’m glad had no lasting impact. The story dates back to the spring […]
Random Photo: Spring Tulips and a Birthday Clue
I had no good ideas for a post today, so as I sometimes do, I looked through old photographs for inspiration. This time, I was looking for something spring-ish. And I found a snapshot of my brother and me examining spring tulips. I didn’t remember this picture, but it was one that my father saved […]
A Baby Sister
Some events stand out in the mind firmly enough that we remember where we were on a particular day, even a day decades in the past. National and international incidents like the first moon landing or President Kennedy’s assassination or September 11, 2001, are among these occasions. But so are family events—the death of a […]
Grocery Deliveries Long Before the Pandemic
My parents had a stroller for me when I was an infant. I don’t remember riding in the seat, but there is a picture to prove that I did. Once my brother came along, he got the seat, and I was relegated to standing on the back of the stroller. That I do remember. This […]
On Angst and Sit-Coms
My youngest brother is eleven and one-half years younger than I am. Given where our birthdays fell, he started kindergarten the same month I started college. I’ve written before how he took me for show and tell over my Christmas break when he was in kindergarten, and I got upstaged by his classmate’s golden retriever. […]
Wedding Photographs of Siblings and Spouses
As I wrote recently, I’ve had weddings on my mind. Here’s another post on the subject of weddings. This time, the bride(s) and groom(s) are me and my siblings. Specifically, this post is about framed wedding pictures of me and my spouse and my siblings and their spouses. My mother had this thing about years […]