Retelling Tales: My Grandfather the Salesman
I’ve written before that my paternal grandfather, Laverne Ernst Claudson, was the grandparent I knew the least. Both of my grandmothers overshadowed their husbands in my young life, and I spent more time with my maternal grandparents as a child than I did my father’s parents, so I never felt I knew my Papa Verne […]
A Halloween Spin
As I’ve written before, I don’t usually dress up in costume on Halloween. But one year I did. It was the year my daughter wore a homemade clown costume, a hand-me-down from her cousin. When I told a friend at work that my daughter was going to be a clown, she volunteered she had an […]
Storytelling Is Important in Many Professions, Whether Reciting the Facts or Making It Up
Lawyers are supposed to tell a story when they are trying a case. Professors taught me that in law school classes, I read countless columns by James McElhaney in the American Bar Association Journal over the years giving the same advice, and I went to a National Institute of Trial Advocacy training program where we […]
My Grandmother’s Pearls and the Nature of Memory
My father’s mother gave me a pearl necklace many years ago. I think the occasion was my high school graduation, but it could have been for my sixteenth birthday or some other milestone in my teens. It was the first “old” piece of jewelry I received. In fact, I thought the necklace looked too old-fashioned […]
Out of the Closet
Here is the post I had planned for January 7. I think I’m ready for it now: One of the things I love most about my house is the huge closet in the master bedroom. It is about ten feet by fourteen feet and lined with rods on the sides and down the middle. I […]
Travels to Europe As Book Ends of a Career
In August 1979, shortly after the bar exam, my husband and I traveled to London for two weeks. It was our delayed honeymoon, almost two years after we were married, and celebrated the end of law school and the beginning of our working careers. We knew that it would be a while before we would […]
Break a Leg (Or At Least a Foot)
Those of you who have read my story “Competitive Yoga” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You (story available online here, and book available from Amazon here), know that I took up yoga several years ago. You also know that I hate exercise. My experience described in “Competitive Yoga” was not the first time […]
Parenting the Parents: On Being a Sounding Board
August 1979, thirty-five years ago this month, was the first time I felt I was more of an adult than my parents. After my husband and I graduated from law school and took the bar exam, he had to go on his two weeks’ annual training with the Naval Reserves, and I went to visit […]
Memories of Cold
We are ahead of pace on snowfall for the season, and the average low temperature this month has been about 18 degrees below average. It is cold. Monday morning this week, the temperature in Kansas City was -11 degrees. As luck would have it, I was scheduled to be in court on Monday to serve […]
Giving Up Divinity
My paternal grandmother’s chocolate fudge and divinity were part of many of my childhood Christmases, along with her fruitcake. I didn’t care for the fruitcake, but I did love the candy. She made two colors of divinity, pink and green. One of the batches she would make without nuts, because I didn’t like nuts in […]