A Scary Vacation: Falling in the Grand Canyon
A friend recently returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon. “The ranger told us only seven people had died in the park this year,” she told me. “I thought seven was a lot!” A quick Google search showed me that an average of twelve people die in the Grand Canyon National Park each year. […]
Always Go to the Funeral
I was reminded recently of something my daughter taught me. It’s nice to have children who are mature enough to teach their parents life lessons. Both my children came home for their uncle’s funeral in May. Actually, my daughter had been visiting, and merely had to extend her visit by a day to attend the […]
A Treasure: My Daughter’s First Graduation Photo
I mentioned last year that I found many “treasures” when I cleaned out some cupboards. Here is one of them—my daughter’s preschool graduation photo from May 1990. Her preschool was part of a Catholic parochial school. She started at the “early childhood learning center” (as the preschool was formally called) when she was three months […]
You Know Your Children Are Grown When . . . [Part V]
I’ve written on this topic several times in the past, but in recent months I’ve had more occasions to reflect on the benefits of having grown children. You know your children are grown when 1. Both children call on your birthday, and you don’t think one reminded the other this year (though maybe . . […]
The Great-Grandmother I Know the Most About: Cecelia Ryan Strachan
I never knew my great-grandmother Cecelia Ryan Strachan, my maternal grandmother’s mother. In fact, Cecelia died before my mother was born, so my mother never knew this grandmother either. But I can piece together some facts about Cecelia’s life, from family stories and from Sacramento newspaper articles and histories. That’s one of the advantages of […]
Memories of Girl Scouts on National Girl Scout Day
I don’t typically write back-to-back posts about “national days” and similar occasions, although it is interesting to note that International Women’s Day (March 8) and National Girl Scout Day (March 12) are in close proximity. The purpose of the Girl Scouting is to help build girls’ courage, confidence, and character, to make them into people […]
A Pox on Chickenpox (Part 2)
I wrote recently about my son’s bout with chickenpox in January 1986. Well, as I feared, a couple of weeks after he recovered, his little sister broke out in spots. She was not quite nine months old at the time—just a baby. But a baby with a forceful personality. As the second child in the […]
Six Years of Blogging: A Measure of Time and an Assessment of Life
I launched my blog “Story & History: One writer’s journey through life and time” in January 2012, publishing only three short posts that month. It took awhile to find my rhythm (stepped up to publishing twice a week) and my voice. For five years, I published on WordPress.com, and last year I moved here to […]
Anniversary in Aruba
For our 25th wedding anniversary in 2002, my husband and I went to Aruba. First, we celebrated Thanksgiving at home with our two children—I think that was the only year we have ever had just the four of us for a holiday. We cooked turkey and all the trimmings, and at the end of that […]
Random Photos: Thanksgiving 1988
Every so often I thumb through one of my boxes of old photographs. This time I kept thumbing until I found something suitable for a November blog post, so I suppose my choice isn’t really random at all. For this post, I selected an envelope of pictures my father took during a visit my parents […]