I am heartbroken over how the pandemic impacted my grandchildren. What they lost can never be fixed.
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View Laurie Levy's profile
I am heartbroken over how the pandemic impacted my grandchildren. What they lost can never be fixed.
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"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it" -- Goethe
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In the face of injustice ... resistance.
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I have a long history of poor sleep. When I was still working, a colleague and I used to joke that we should have called one another at 4:00 a.m. because we were both up at ridiculous o’clock every day.
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Leaving aside his despicable political views and deeds, there is no way I would want this creep to protect me. He’s a gross, misogynistic pig.
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Here’s something else I do remember. In the movie GiGi, which I loved when I was when I was a pre-teen, Maurice Chevalier sang to Hermione Gingold, I Remember it Well.
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The violence exacerbated by Mayor Daley’s draconian crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention helped to elect Nixon, a far worse alternative than Humphrey.
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There has to be a better way to deliver medical care. ER waiting rooms are just another broken part of our system.
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1963 was the year I became my own person with my own values.
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Not all kids, or adults for that matter, love dogs. Can’t there be a few dog-free public spaces where a young girl can ride her bike or play or simply take a walk and feel safe?
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How did I get to the point where I needed to make a spreadsheet to keep everything straight?
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Because Offspring had it all: love, sex, babies, good food, and lots of music, it held our attention and took our minds off our isolation and anxiety.
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The process of preparing our house to go on the market felt like peeling an onion – layer by layer, my life there disappeared.
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My friends and I often engage in organ recitals — Not the musical type but rather what is hurting today and can it be fixed.
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I’m not a second guesser. Once I decide to buy or do something, I don’t perseverate about my decision.
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I definitely have an issue with stuff magically multiplying.
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I don’t remember snow days when I was in school. That’s because school never closed for snow or cold winter days. We had warm hats, scarves, mittens, boots, and snowsuits. Think Ralph’s little brother in A Christmas Story. And we walked to and from school. So, it’s no surprise that I pulled my three little…
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Until the pandemic hit, the thing that caused me the most stress was my back pain.
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The moral of the tale is that it is possible to have a perfectly behaved dog — just not one trained by anyone in my family.
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I guess a show that has been on the air for 49 years has to evolve, and each generation has its own concept of what is funny.
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Then came the part I was dreading. Where do I go to wait for my road test?
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My father earned his nickname, Swearing Sid.
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With three kids, four beds to make, and seemingly endless piles of towels to wash and dry, laundry “day” happened several times a week. Wash, dry, fold, put away was my mantra.
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While prejudice takes different forms in different eras, I fear it never really leaves us.
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It is said that a predictor of happiness and longevity as we age is maintaining strong friendships.
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Our country’s response of togetherness and patriotism in the immediate aftermath of the terrorists bring down the Twin Towers with airplanes was the last time I remembered feeling a sense of unity in our country.
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Sadly, many people who need care and supervision end up as part of the homeless population living in the streets.
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I’m one of those people who gets a task 95% completed and decides it is good enough.
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I was raised in Michigan during the era when Walter Reuther advocated for workers’ rights, universal health care, public education, and affordable housing and the UAW was seen as a sacred, progressive union in my home. He and George Meany cofounded the AFL-CIO in 1955. Unions brought prosperity to middle class families, many of whom…
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The closest I can come to feeling imprisoned is how the pandemic impacted my freedom starting in March, 2020.
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Imagine my shock as a kid when I saw my parents throw a set of luggage into the rising waters flooding our basement.
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In 1967, I left my hometown in Michigan to move to Chicago with Fred, who would be starting medical school. Before I moved, I received several dire warnings from the women in my family. My great-aunt Sarah shared that she had read several cases in The Jewish Daily Forward’s “A Bintel Brief” about women who…
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Now wild fires are added to the list of climate change based disasters, which may have been avoidable if only Gore had become president … and if only we had listened.
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They say man plans and God laughs. On the big day, it rained steadily from sun up to midnight.
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Jews were told to remove their shoes and then shot by the Hungarian Arrow Cross and pushed into the river. As one of our guides said, “They disappeared.” Only their shoes remained behind.
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My tried and true approach to all problems with technology: Turn it off and turn it back on. Nine times out of ten, the problem is mysteriously fixed.
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If only George Clooney were waiting to treat me at the ER, perhaps the trip would be worth all of the wait and inconvenience.
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I know my attitude is wrong. People are entitled to jury trials, and I would probably be a good juror (except for Trump).
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Still, I wonder if I had a bit more solitude, would I be more productive?
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We have been friends since that fateful day when we both decided to take a walk to the park at the same time.
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Maybe it’s our age, but here we are, no longer needing to get up at dawn but set in our ways.
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One of my favorite stories about my late mother-in-law, AKA Nana, was the group family photo taken at a wedding. She had a huge copy made, which hung prominently in her living room. She loved that picture. But when my youngest sister-in-law was divorced, what was she going to do with a beloved and expensive…
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When I started blogging, I named my blog “Still Advocating” — and indeed I am.
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I have cut lots of cords in my lifetime as technology changed, but I’m still afraid to let go of that last cord that enables me to understand how to operate my television.
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My journey through high school from 1959 to 1963 was more about what I wished I could be than about actually becoming my own person. For me, that didn’t happen until I left home for college.
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“You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” — American saying, author unknown Part of aging is the physical breakdown of our bodies. I have tried to slow down the inevitable by working with a physical therapist weekly to strengthen my aching back and core (such as it is). Ironically, it…
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Maybe Mother’s Day is the time to share the message my mother left on my phone with my children and grandchildren. I’m proud of you for just being who you are, and I love you unconditionally.
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I have a long history of poor sleep. When I was still working, a colleague and I used to joke that we should have called one another at 4:00 a.m. because we were both up at ridiculous o’clock every day.
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Hillary, I get you. I was you. Sadly, as my mother often advised me, it’s nice to be smart but be quiet about it.
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This is so not the world I had hoped to leave for my grandkids. It’s definitely time for a new generation to take over.
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In 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in Lower Manhattan.
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If home is the place “where everybody knows your name,” where you have friends that date back over 50 years, Evanston is my home town.
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As Mark Twain said, “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
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I guess I ended up with the wrong set of genes for my theatrical fantasies, but I’m really enjoying watching my granddaughter perform.
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After my mother was pronounced dead, my sister-in-law handed me the diamond necklace Mom always wore.
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Since time is an arbitrary construct, I advocate for staying on Daylight savings time going forward.
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I have been part of and attended many ceremonies in my lifetime, but on February 23, 2019, I experienced emotions I cannot find words to express.
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As we all take a well-deserved break for the month of January to reflect on the future of Retrospect, thanks to all who read and commented as I responded every week to the question, “What’s Your Story?”
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It wasn’t until 2006 that I actually bought a computer for myself, my beloved iMac-7.1.
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As long as I know where the lake is, I know I am headed east.
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Steve Martin’s role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors captured how many of us feel about going to the dentist.
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I was gifted an unsafe, flimsy, and frankly ugly aluminum highchair purchased with green stamps.
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Of course, the feud’s origin dated back decades before the pillow incident.
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Flash bulb memories: three assassinations that shaped my world view from age 18 to 23.
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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
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I have learned over all these years and in every election, voting is a sacred honor and every vote matters. The whole world is watching.
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When my kids were young, they eagerly anticipated the Toys R Us holiday gift catalog every November.
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My childhood cookbook was filled with images of perky girls wearing aprons (whatever happened to my aprons?) serving food to guys in sport coats and crew cuts.
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We hated the drive to Detroit to visit my family when our three kids were young. In those days, it was six hours of torture. They were not great car travelers and entertainment options were limited to coloring and puzzle books, my reading to or singing with them, and I Spy type games. When boredom…
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When I saw the original classic Disney cartoon (1950) of Cinderella as a child, I totally bought into her song of "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes."
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Our first nest was rather humble. We really couldn’t afford to do much feathering of this nest.
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As sexist as it is, I do miss the old Marshall Field’s mantra, “Give the lady what she wants.”
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Woodstock was truly a film best enjoyed when stoned.
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Even including our home of 45 years, our priciest purchase was our children’s educations.
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A favorite teacher lives forever in our hearts.
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I was always the girl who was on time, organized, and started assignments well before they were due.
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My cousin Annette and I took our grandparents to see Fiddler on the Roof performed at Detroit’s beautiful Fisher Theater. The Google machine tells me this happened prior to the show’s Broadway debut, so it was either in 1963 or early 1964. We were lucky to see Zero Mostel in the role of Tevya. In…
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Pick a card. Any card. How many times has a kid asked you to do that?
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I have no memory of learning to ride an actual bike.
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After buying our first used car, a 1960 Dodge Dart with push button transmission, we learned the value of having a good mechanic.
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I probably have other more valuable things that are older than I am, but these are the two I treasure the most.
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My first memory of broadcast news is the image of my mother madly ironing while watching something on television that clearly angered her, the Army-McCarthy hearings. I was just a kid and thus she never explained to me why she kept watching this when it was clearly upsetting her. I guess my grandkids could wonder…
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The names selected by our parents were ones they favored from popular movie stars — Lauren for me after Lauren Bacall and Fredric for him for Fredric March.
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But if I must confess the truth, I write for myself because that is who I am.
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We knew from past experience that we would struggle in Paris unless our kids helped, which they refused to do.
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As I mark my tenth Father’s Day without having a father, I am thinking about this most important choice my father helped me to make.
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If I live to be 90 like my parents, my children are free to surprise me. Just no flamingos this time.
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While I am far from woke, I really want to learn.
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As a child, I remember being told, “go to bed.” This meant brush your teeth and use the bathroom. Whether or not my parents read to me is a lost memory. If I had trouble falling asleep, the remedy was a glass of warm milk. The first actual bedtime rituals I remember were for my…
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On May 10, 1933, university students burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books in Berlin’s Opera Square (pictured below). 40,000 people gathered to hear Nazi chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, make a speech in which he said, “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Sound familiar? This past January, the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee…
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My eyes were dark brown, but the Hollywood ideal was a blue-eyed blond. Thus, I pondered what I could do to make myself more attractive in the eye department.
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You Better Shop Around and Ten Other Useful Bits of Advice
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Who would spend $1,000 on a serving for four of plastic dishes and mugs adorned with a photo of the class guinea pig, Buster?
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The current Ukrainian refugee crisis reminds me that my grandparents were refugees who left their families and the only homes they had known to come to America in the beginning of the 20th century.
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As Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It's déjà vu all over again.”
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There was something about cramming into a small booth that made the old photo booths special.
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Of all of the cheap places we stayed when my husband and I took an eight-week trip to Europe and Israel, Victor Mattace’s pensione was the worst.
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It’s hard to explain to my grandkids what honesty looks like. And I certainly can’t tell them that cheaters never prosper.
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Our grungy basement was perfect for free play, a thing all kids need.
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I am living in a time warp, totally unmoored from any sense of day or even month.
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Now, I remember why I hate Ikea.
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What I do remember from my early teen years is being the Den Mother for my youngest brother’s Cub Scout pack.
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One guilty pleasure I share with my husband is PBS Masterpiece Theater serials
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No matter how many times I hear Hey Jude, I am always moved to tears.
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On 2/2/22, my granddaughter’s school declared a “snow day” during a moderate snow storm that ended mid-afternoon. Parents and teachers were upset because the school made the call late, when staff and students who arrive early for before school activities were already there. Perhaps the strange date filled with twos made the day feel auspicious.…
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If I’m being honest, my main source of eaten comfort is a good slice of bread.
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Still, on a quiet Sunday there is nothing more relaxing than working my way through that pile of newspapers.
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Taking those grand family photos is not a thing for my children’s generation.
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I don’t remember ever feeling cold when I played outside on snowy days as a child. I know my kids and grandkids could enjoy it for hours. Even my granddogs loved a snowy day.
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Long before President Eisenhower built the interstate highways, my grandfather, Philip Krut, drove his family from Detroit to Cleveland.
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I’ve never been big on making resolutions because I know I will never keep them. But this prompt asks me to ponder the topic. Thus, in 2022, I resolve to … Stay sane Be healthy Keep my anxiety under control Stop making “suggestions” to my middle-aged kids See friends and family in person when it’s…
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What is it about a friendship that stays with you forever, even when your communication is reduced to an annual letter and a few emails and phone calls?
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Early childhood educators often find relief through the funny and endearing things their young charges do and say. Sometimes, you just have to laugh.
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The Spanish proverb that is the title of my story is a painful lesson I learned as a young adult. Growing up in a traditional Jewish household, I was taught two Jewish proverbs as a child: “What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth.” “Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.”…
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Not easy for a woman who hates to gamble. But nothing in life is ever a sure bet.
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I love Thanksgiving and taking time to feel grateful for the blessings in my life.
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All of this makes me long for the days when most health care was affordable and doctors were reachable by simply calling their office.
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Chain letters were never my thing.
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I wish I had been able to be with him to tell him I loved him and hold his hand. I will always regret not being there for that final farewell.
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When did Halloween evolve into such a huge deal? I have a hard time remembering much about Halloween from my childhood. Perhaps that’s because I am trying to recall memories from 65 years ago. Once, I asked my mother what costumes I wore for Halloween, and she informed me that it really wasn’t that important…
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But I do think some of the changes necessitated by the pandemic will be positive ones if we choose to learn from them.
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I love to shop local and support the small businesses that still exist in my community, but the first consideration is always parking.
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Bring your children to experience wandering among shelves of actual books before it is too late. And don’t forget to visit and support your local library.
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One of my fondest memories of raising my children was cuddling up at bedtime with a book and reading together.
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I was never a lover of Ed Sullivan (except for the famous Beatles performance) or Carol Burnett, but boy did I enjoy Rowan and Martin and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
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After I retired, I joined the board of the preschool I had founded as a community representative. We were planning our 25th anniversary year celebration, which was to include a video of the founding, history, and philosophy of the school. It was during a discussion about this video that I learned that people in 2017…
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The demise of the family dinner is definitely a loss.
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Those preschoolers who started school on September 11, 2001, may not remember that day, but I hope they will be able to recapture the sense of community, caring, and working for the common good that we felt back then.
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As a native of the Motor City, everyone I knew drove to work.
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Next hurtle – what contractor in his right mind would undertake this project with such an unrealistic budget and very tight timeline? It was now June and we needed to open the school in September.
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My husband only occasionally engaged in DIY projects with me “supervising,” but we did live for 45 years in a house built in 1911. And we loved our old house, despite its frequent need for repairs.
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It’s easy to laugh about senior moments when your parents lived long lives with their faculties intact. Not so easy for my friend whose mother and uncles all developed Alzheimer’s.
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As I reflect on dating from the time I became a teen to that fateful night when I met my husband-to-be, it was a pretty bleak time for a female.
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Thankfully, one summer 52 years ago my husband I made an impractical and probably irresponsible choice. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of our lives.
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But that food! I never knew everything imaginable could be fried.
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Looking back at my hobbies as a young girl, I realize how passive and home-bound they were.
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I come from a family that marked every special occasion with a family photo.
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I will never forget the actual anniversary of the day my mother died, April 19, 2015.
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I wondered if they would have been just as happy going to a resort near home that had a pool.
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My grandkids live in a very different world, characterized by mass shootings, increasing gun ownership, and everyday violence that claims so many lives in cities like Chicago near where I live.
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I have tried buying smaller, light weight purses to spare my back. But that will only work if I don’t overload them until they are bursting with essentials that I can’t leave home without. Or so I think. I’m going to inventory the contents of my smallish summer purse. Here are the items that are…
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My parents loved most of the game and quiz shows that were popular when I was growing up.
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Loving a child with disabilities grants you membership to a club which people never aspire to join.
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Allowing kids to name their pets leads to the most creative and special pet names.
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I remember my grandparents’ version of recycling, best summed up by the saying “waste not want not.”
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Michael Jackson’s actions were so unforgivable that I cringe when I hear his music. But now that he’s gone, is it okay to dance? I’m not sure.
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Reflecting on radio, I remember my father and my middle brother, both of whom depended on it to survive.
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This Mother’s Day, I salute my mother and all who understand and appreciate the importance and challenges of what she called being “just a housewife.”
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For now, our lives as vaccinated people are better, but we still question every decision we make about getting back to whatever normal will be.
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Now, I’m starting to know how my mother felt about tech support — dazed and confused.
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My mother’s absence is part of my daily life now. But there are still times when the wound still feels fresh.
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Amazingly, An Affair to Remember, the movie women of my generation shed pools of tears over, just turned sixty-four.
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Here are a few manners I didn’t pass on to my kids …
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Virtual schooling has been judged to be a failure for many children, especially those disadvantaged by ability or challenging circumstances in their home lives.
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Growing up, the only people of color I knew were our cleaning woman, Pam, and a series of successors whose names I can’t recall.
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I forget what #10 was. Getting harder to remember stuff.
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I ended up with neither straight nor curly hair. I have tried to push my hair one way or the other all of my life.
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This past year has made me realize what really matters most to me.
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Note: No children were warped by their exposure to this junk.
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My screen memory is actually about my baby brother and my wish that he would disappear.
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My reconnecting stories begin with ways to rekindle old ties that have fallen away over the years.
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Preschoolers understand and need expressions of love and caring every day. Come to think of it, so do most people.
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The last time I wore a hat, aside from ugly winter wear on below zero days, was the beret in my featured image.
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When Jon Bon Jovi kicked off the evening’s entertainment singing Here Comes the Sun as the Florida sun rose in the background, I felt the optimism that comes with a sunrise after a dark and stormy night.
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My message to my grandkids and their peers is to stand up for what you believe in and then to go out and make some noise. I will always be proud of you for any “good trouble” you create along the way.
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My father instilled an appreciation for art in me, filtered through his lens of what constituted good art.
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Losing a pregnancy is a very low time in any woman’s life. I’m writing to tell you that you survived, and you thrived.
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Growing up, I was taught that the proper reply to being thanked was, “You’re welcome.”
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I fear I’m talking about what we find on television to pass the time as we head into our ninth month of the pandemic.
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4:20 PM central standard time. Darkness descends. No sunrise until 7:17. Dark dominates for fifteen hours. Pandemic fear grips me. More than 311,000 people dead. Isolation. Zooms — too many zooms. News — too much news. Books begun and abandoned. Sunday Times unfinished. Too cold to visit outside in Chicago. 34 degrees numbs fingers and…
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Thinking back as Retrospect asks me to do, I had only two job interviews in a 25-year career in education.
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For someone who loves to write, being a terrible speller used to be my Achilles heel.
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I learned the most from my years of volunteering at a well-run school under the leadership of the man who became my mentor, Warren Cherry.
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The winter of my discontent has arrived and I’m feeling exhausted and so sad. There is no turkey to carve.
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My pre-teen daughters spend hours weaving the ribbon in/out of the barrette, creating colorful patterns that match every outfit they own.
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1963, the year I started college, was a rather schizophrenic time for women. There were glimmerings of feminism and social activism, but a lot of the old expectations for women lived side-by-side with these new ideas.
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He climbed up the slide like a superhero, reassuring the child not to worry saying, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here for you. I’ll go down with you.”
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On this Halloween, I pray the results of the upcoming election do not make it into another one that haunts me. Our country deserves a treat rather than a trick this time.
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Random thoughts from a nasty woman facing a long winter … One of my favorite political memes is “Nevertheless, she persisted,” said by Mitch McConnell to Elizabeth Warren back in February of 2017. She refused to be silenced while reading a letter into the Senate record written by Coretta Scott King opposing Jeff Sessions for…
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The more computer savvy I became, the less contact I had with those little humans who mattered so much to me.
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As one of our guides said, “They disappeared.” Only their shoes remained behind. Some of them were so tiny.
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Weejuns represented my journey in college to becoming my own person.
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Funerals were forbidden when I was growing up. They were mysterious events my parents attended with other adults. My first introduction to this final rite of passage was my grandfather Philip Krut’s funeral on May 2, 1972. I was 26 years old and the mother of a one-year-old. Did I attend alone? Were my husband…
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In Judaism, turning thirteen is a big deal. For generations, boys were called to read from the Torah in a ceremony called a bar mitzvah, which marked their entry as an adult into the Jewish community. This was a boys-only club until March 18, 1922, when American rabbi Mordecai Kaplan held the first bat mitzvah…
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I was 68 when my “write brain” took over. I have written over 800 stories and a book since I retired. While I don’t do brain games, my brain is far from idle. In fact, it may be a bit too busy.
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I still have her pictures somewhere on my phone, but more importantly, I have the memory of sharing those wonderful summer days in the Rose Garden.
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The lost part of turning 75 on is easy to write. Yet, I hope I have found the perspective and patience to look forward rather than to wallow in the misery of the present.
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It is so true that, as Andy Warhol famously said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” During the summers of my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I indulged my interest in theater by becoming an apprentice at Northland Playhouse in the newly built Northland Mall in a suburb of…
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I stayed away from yard sales for many years after that experience, but starting Cherry Preschool with no money meant I would have to become a garage and yard sale lover.
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Looking back, there were many things my mother did that were wonderful. And yet, I had a list of eight things I swore I would never do as a parent.
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As we mark Middle Child Day, I think we are missing folks who embody the stereotypical qualities of middle children.
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I’m pretty sure my younger brothers would agree that, even at our ages and retired persons status, I can still be pretty bossy.
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Can you forgive a friend? My answer is a resounding “yes.” In fact, it goes beyond something you can do to something you must do.
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Our country has failed this generation of children whose lives will be forever defined by their experiences during the pandemic.
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So why couldn't they read the neatly transcribed directions? Well, because they were written in cursive.
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As I grew older, I learned to embrace the Sarah Bernhardt in me. I came to see it as having the courage of my convictions and the ability to stand up for what I believed.
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They were marching partly as a tribute to Marcy, a woman whose life embodied so much of what protests and activism had accomplished to advance the cause of social justice.
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Still, this is my hometown. I love it for the amazing people I have met here and its overall caring heart and beauty.
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That chance meeting ended up being the longest date of my life. It has lasted 54 years.
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As I approached Jeffrey, my face crimson, he uttered the word that doomed me – relax.
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For me, magazines are like comfort food. Not necessarily good for me, but all I want to read when I’m sick or feeling low.
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She was the fun aunt – the one who let me do everything my mother forbid.
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After both of my parents had died, I was left with some special memorabilia and a powerful need to remember them.
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When we decided to downsize and move from our home of 45 years to a condo, we never dreamed we would have so much time to sort and travel down memory lane. Deciding what to keep or donate or discard became a DIY project during our #stayathome approach to being seniors who should avoid exposure…
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The sacred recipes I shared have a few things in common. They are easy to create, and they bring people joy.
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Her superstitions were old wives’ tales she brought to America from the old country as a girl.
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I rushed home and sprayed myself with Shalimar. It wasn’t a strong scent, but I could smell my mother’s perfume.
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Trying my best to “keep calm and carry on.”
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Looking back, “Ding dong, Avon calling,” was an important stepping stone for my mother to gain confidence in an era in which people actually answered their doorbells.
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My worst dreams have become a reality as we struggle through these endless days of #stayathome.
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When we got to reciting the ten plagues during our Zoom seder, I know all of us were thinking about an eleventh one that kept us apart this year.
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We went to Paris and Israel in 1984, the year our son turned thirteen. It was a wonderful trip marred by a few unforeseen catastrophes, the greatest of which was almost losing his little sister. Our daughters were ten and seven, and it was our youngest who gave me one of the most frightening close…
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Do I dare to gift myself with my true name of Lauren? Probably too late, and after all, no one calls me “Big Laurie” anymore. Mostly, I go by Gramma.
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Life as we know it has ground to a halt. This is the staycation from hell that no one planned or wanted.
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My life has been enriched by every community I have been part of, every group with which I have shared a common goal and a connection.
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Some of the most loving people I have ever seen are the parents and caregivers in waiting rooms of speech pathologists, occupational therapists, play therapists, physical therapists, and almost any place that works with children who have disabilities.
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I remember feeling passive and helpless when it came to dating.
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Now that my parents are gone, I realize there were so many questions I wish I had asked them. All I have now are their letters to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of the years between when they met and their marriage.
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I wish our country’s leadership and values embodied less of Soupy Sales and more of Fred Rogers these days.
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Now when someone asks what I do, I answer for myself. I’m unretired and I’m writing and having a blast.
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Thirty-five years after the giddy fun of singing the Super Bowl Shuffle and celebrating Da Bears’ victory, this former Superfan is done.
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It’s several pages of blue ink on real stationery that’s crammed full of things I want to know: the health of her husband, the latest project she is working on, what her three sons are doing, and cute anecdotes about her grandkids.
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So yes, it is time to get started. But first, I have to find a good home for this Waterford bowl my aunt gave me when I got married.
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As I age, I reflect back over all of the people who were important to me for a period of time and then lost as our lives took different paths.
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My husband has shirts and sweatshirts hanging in this closet that fit into the category of “I thought I had a shirt that I used to wear with this sweater but it’s gone.”
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I lack my mother’s passion for tidying up. So I have decided to embrace the clutter in my life and put my energy into things that really “spark joy.”
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Looking over the ways I have celebrated the New Year, it’s hard to remember why it used to be such a big deal.
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I’ve enjoyed some of the movies that have made top ten lists. Parasite, The Irishman, JoJo Rabbit, and Marriage Story are particularly good among the ones I have been able to see. But my favorite movie of the year for pure enjoyment is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was released this summer, so people…
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I have no control over the holidaze. The only thing I can control is how I respond to it.
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Annette was more like the sister I always wished for than a cousin.
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I hope the preschoolers we taught remember that charity begins in our hearts and in the way we treat one another.
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When I thumb through my mother’s attempt to memorialize my early childhood, it doesn’t really matter what she wrote or what she saved. The love with which she did it is what endures.
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Becoming pregnant was shrouded in mystery back then. There was always an element of surprise when I became pregnant.
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Young people are using the phrase OK, boomer to indicate disdain for folks of my generation.
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In July of 2018, Arthur Andrew Gelien died. I knew him as Tab Hunter and had his picture pasted in a scrapbook devoted to my celebrity crushes. I was my granddaughter’s age when I swooned to his song Young Love and watched him in the movie Damn Yankees. He was cute and, like several of…
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I want to put my grandkids in a bubble to keep them from seeing all of the hatred and bullying out there since Trump descended that golden escalator.
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I hoped my granddaughter and her peers would embrace the importance of sisterhood before the Mean Girl games of middle school took over.
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There is nothing I love more than reading to young children. I felt like we had fallen into a treasure trove of great entertainment.
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This was originally published in Retrospect on October 12, 2019 under the prompt Hacked and Scammed. Although I have been hacked other times, it is still my favorite story of being hacked. The screen froze. A red, pulsing light covered QuickBooks, accompanied by a loud, persistent beep. I froze in horror, as this old laptop…
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Suburbia and my mother were grooming me for my future occupation of Mom.
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Parents check references and hope the person they hire is caring and competent. If they find Mary Poppins, they have to pray she doesn’t quit without notice.
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I grew up in a house of cards. Literally.
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I hope my children picture me as a doting grandmother, happily playing with their children, unburdened by the daily demands of parenting. And it’s true that one of the joys of having grandchildren is spending special time together. To me, that means reading books, drawing, going to the park, singing and dancing to Beatles tunes…
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September is National Courtesy Month, so I am making an extra effort to stay calm and be a polite driver. Just wish others would do the same.
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Warren taught me through example what it really meant to be a mensch, a good human being.
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My youngest grandchild starts kindergarten next week. Here’s hoping he gets a loving teacher who understands that young children learn best in a play-based kindergarten.
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What’s today’s weather? We really need to pay close attention.
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Seeing the documentary movie version the summer of 1970 shaped my Woodstock experience.
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If I were a teacher these days, I would tread very lightly with that family tree assignment.
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Pauline’s life had been destroyed by mental illness and institutionalization. But what had happened to her children as well as her grandchildren and great grandchildren? Was there a way to make something solid and meaningful from this tragedy?
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When we work together, there is a greater chance we can solve the problem, from rescuing a tortoise to tackling the huge issues that plague our neighborhoods and our country.
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Boredom is a state of mind that doesn’t need to exist, especially for children.
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I never actually saw the moon landing on television until long after it happened. On July 20, 1969, my husband and I were on what turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime, eight-week trip to Europe, Greece, and Israel. We had a vague notion that American astronauts had walked on the moon by looking at photos…
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As an educator, however, summer was always the reading season, and old habits die hard.
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I know I will hear those bombs bursting in air every July. And while the fireworks displays are beautiful, these sounds do not feel celebratory. They remind me of guns and war, not patriotism.
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Thus, I came to believe in truthiness in politics, a term coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005, which meant, “The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.”
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I’ll always be grateful to my MIL for talking us into what was, back then, a glamorous honeymoon trip rather than spending a few days at a local resort or hotel.
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It was also the night I committed the most anti-feminist act ever. I came with Paula but left with Fred.
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After taking my grandkids to a real children’s bookstore and seeing their excitement, I feel sad that this experience may not be part of their lives as they grow up.
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To me becoming an English teacher was a punchline. And yet, that is just where my college path led me.
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Such is the nature of social media friendships. They can wax and wane. But I still find it remarkable to feel close with someone I have never actually met.
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I wish my PE perils had been more pleasurable and that I had learned activities I could have done all of my life.
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Exams once ruled my life. Now, having experienced many true tests over a lifetime, I realize that no amount of preparation guarantees a good result. It is what I do with the hand I’m dealt that truly matters.
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I had my first accident before I even had a driver’s license. Armed with my learner’s permit, I cautiously drove a few blocks to the A&P with my mother. When, we arrived, she pointed to a spot and told me to pull in there. I did, but I also bumped into the car in the…
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As part of the duck and cover generation, I despair that my legacy to today’s school children is a country in which they understand that there is no real safety as long as the gun culture persists.
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This Earth Day, let’s keep in mind that our actions today can improve our health and well-being tomorrow, provide a brighter future for the next generation, and have beneficial consequences many generations from now that could never be foreseen today.
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From my father, I inherited the importance of honesty and fairness regarding taxes.
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The first poem I remember from my childhood is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. I memorized it when I was young to impress my father, who was a huge history buff. Not a great poem, but I still remember some of it: Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the…
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For my granddaughter with significant disabilities, spring break will literally break her, along with the rest of us.
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Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor for all twelve years of his administration, was the first female cabinet secretary and a woman you should know and admire.
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Ironically, being betrayed by a church led to the creation of an early childhood program based on values to which religious institutions should aspire: community, inclusion, acceptance, caring, kindness, and love for children.
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My first real apartment, not counting the college one with mean notes posted on the refrigerator to clean the bathroom and the dial removed from one roommate’s television so no one else could watch it, was the basement unit (AKA Garden Apartment) my new husband and I inhabited right after our wedding in August of…
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I started writing for MyRetrospect in July of 2018, so I’m a relative newbie. John Zussman found a post I had written on another site and asked if he could use it. Then he asked if I wanted to write for Retrospect. I loved the format and, as a woman looking at her 70th birthday…
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I have been thinking lately about the many different roads or turning points that have made up the map of my life thus far. Sometimes, the choice of path was the more traveled one. Sometimes, I chose the one less traveled by. Looking back on a lifetime of choices, it seems like some of the most important ones chose me.
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Lately, I have been thinking that, aside from the little ones in my life who love to tear open wrapping paper to find a new toy, the best gift may be the gift of time.
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At some point, almost everyone experiences leaving home.
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The thing that connects babies to their parents and children to their grandparents is love.
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When the song came out we all took it as a tribute to brown eyed girls who were in love, and later to brown eyed girls in general.
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My mother loved to bake, a trait I inherited. The only way to avoid sweet treats and baked breads at home is to deny myself the pleasure of creating them.
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I look at this photo and sigh. This was my family’s Thanksgiving table seventy years ago. I’m the second child on the left, sharing a meal with two generations now gone. In fact, my dear cousin sitting directly across from me has also died. But the tradition of sharing a meal with folks you love…
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Hell no, we won't go. And the truth is most people I knew didn't end up in Vietnam.
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All of my years as a faithful voter have taught me that it’s important to keep trying. Eventually, I hope our country will get what it needs.
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Actually, even as a lifelong Democrat (my parents indoctrinated me well), I kind of still like Ike.
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I do have a sense of humor, but please don’t tease me or make me (or someone else because I’m an overly empathic person) the butt of a prank or practical joke.
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Perfection in a purse is an elusive pursuit I am afraid I will never achieve. For now, I have taken a vow. No new purses.
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Back in those days, young couples didn’t get dogs first so they could practice their future parenting skills. So my baby son was my proverbial first pancake.
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And so ended my MRI trip down memory lane. It would be a long and winding road to repair what time had done to me. Once — as the Beatles reminded me — I was just 17. Now I am 71.
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Yep, my heart went boom. I loved this music, and I adored Paul.
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For some pictures, it was easy to say good riddance. But the photos of people I love – that’s another matter.
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My first two kids were pretty tame as teens, so when I learned about the ambulance in front of our house and every neighbor standing outside watching, it was a shock. Child #3 was far more social than her sibs, and she threw quite a party in my absence. Of course, my husband and I…
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These days, the concept of a family dinner has bitten the dust. My grandkids graze rather than sitting down as a family to eat.
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In so many ways, the senior living experience was a reincarnation of middle school. Men caused major mean girl issues, even for women in their eighties and nineties.
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My first paycheck, and many meager ones that followed, taught me to respect people who work hard but earn little -- something to think about especially on Labor Day.
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Most successful people follow their dreams and achieve things that bring great meaning to their lives. For a very few, lightning will strike and they will become famous. But for most, the satisfaction will come from a job well done and a life well lived.
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Disaster struck. My thesis had vanished. The computer had eaten it and refused to spit it out.
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I have come full cycle from the days when the umbilical cord of my old kitchen connected me to my friends. Like my parents before me and my kids and grandkids, I now avoid long conversations. They cost me valuable time.
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I get why Facebook can be a good thing. Like my mother, I love seeing photos of folks I know (although not so much their food). It’s fun to discover an old friend and learn about the latest news from a friend or relative I don't see very often. It is an interesting diversion as well as a way for me to get my blog posts out to folks who want to read them. But in the run-up to the 2016 election and after, Facebook has become something else: a place to spew hatred and divisiveness.
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Fifty years ago, on February 19, 1968, one of my personal heroes, Fred Rogers, launched his children’s show, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The PBS program, featuring a kindly man in a cardigan and blue sneakers, introduced millions of young children to the concepts of patience, kindness, acceptance, and caring for their neighbors. 1968 was the beginning of a frightening time that felt much like life does today in 2018. Perhaps this is why people weep at showings of Won’t You Be My Neighbor.
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My Pandemic Generation Grandkids
Prompted By Writer's Choice
/ Stories
I am heartbroken over how the pandemic impacted my grandchildren. What they lost can never be fixed.
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Endings Can Lead to New Beginnings
Prompted By All’s Well That Ends Well
/ Stories
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it" -- Goethe
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Too Old to Resist Again?
Prompted By Resistance
/ Stories
In the face of injustice ... resistance.
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Why I Can’t Sleep or Once Upon a Mattress
/ Stories
I have a long history of poor sleep. When I was still working, a colleague and I used to joke that we should have called one another at 4:00 a.m. because we were both up at ridiculous o’clock every day.
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Some Words for Donald Trump: You Will Never be My Protector
Prompted By Words
/ Stories
Leaving aside his despicable political views and deeds, there is no way I would want this creep to protect me. He’s a gross, misogynistic pig.
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I Remember It Well – Sometimes
Prompted By Forgetting
/ Stories
Here’s something else I do remember. In the movie GiGi, which I loved when I was when I was a pre-teen, Maurice Chevalier sang to Hermione Gingold, I Remember it Well.
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Hoping the Democratic Convention Isn’t 1968 Again
Prompted By 1968
/ Stories
The violence exacerbated by Mayor Daley’s draconian crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention helped to elect Nixon, a far worse alternative than Humphrey.
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The ER: The Worst Waiting Room Ever
Prompted By Waiting Rooms
/ Stories
There has to be a better way to deliver medical care. ER waiting rooms are just another broken part of our system.
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Class of ‘63
Prompted By 1963
/ Stories
1963 was the year I became my own person with my own values.
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Fear of Dogs
Prompted By Fears and Phobias
/ Stories
Not all kids, or adults for that matter, love dogs. Can’t there be a few dog-free public spaces where a young girl can ride her bike or play or simply take a walk and feel safe?
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Pill Proliferation
Prompted By Pills
/ Stories
How did I get to the point where I needed to make a spreadsheet to keep everything straight?
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A TV Series That Got Me Through Early COVID
Prompted By TV That Inspired Me
/ Stories
Because Offspring had it all: love, sex, babies, good food, and lots of music, it held our attention and took our minds off our isolation and anxiety.
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Selling a House in a Pandemic
Prompted By My Real Estate Story
/ Stories
The process of preparing our house to go on the market felt like peeling an onion – layer by layer, my life there disappeared.
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Organ Recitals
Prompted By Pain
/ Stories
My friends and I often engage in organ recitals — Not the musical type but rather what is hurting today and can it be fixed.
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Not a Critic, but I Live with One in my Head
Prompted By My Own Worst Critic
/ Stories
I’m not a second guesser. Once I decide to buy or do something, I don’t perseverate about my decision.
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Stuff Multiplies
Prompted By Stuff
/ Stories
I definitely have an issue with stuff magically multiplying.
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Where Have All the Snow Days Gone?
Prompted By Snow Day
/ Stories
I don’t remember snow days when I was in school. That’s because school never closed for snow or cold winter days. We had warm hats, scarves, mittens, boots, and snowsuits. Think Ralph’s little brother in A Christmas Story. And we walked to and from school. So, it’s no surprise that I pulled my three little…
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Stress and my Back Pain
Prompted By Stress
/ Stories
Until the pandemic hit, the thing that caused me the most stress was my back pain.
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My Grand-Dogs are Not Trained
Prompted By Training Pets
/ Stories
The moral of the tale is that it is possible to have a perfectly behaved dog — just not one trained by anyone in my family.
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Too Old for SNL Now
Prompted By Comedy
/ Stories
I guess a show that has been on the air for 49 years has to evolve, and each generation has its own concept of what is funny.
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DMV for Seniors — A Great Idea
Prompted By The DMV
/ Stories
Then came the part I was dreading. Where do I go to wait for my road test?
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Swearing Sid
Prompted By Short Fuse
/ Stories
My father earned his nickname, Swearing Sid.
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Laundry Tales
Prompted By Laundry
/ Stories
With three kids, four beds to make, and seemingly endless piles of towels to wash and dry, laundry “day” happened several times a week. Wash, dry, fold, put away was my mantra.
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From my Parents to Me to my Kids and Grandkids
Prompted By Prejudice
/ Stories
While prejudice takes different forms in different eras, I fear it never really leaves us.
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Friendships That End and Those that Endure
Prompted By Ex-Friends
/ Stories
It is said that a predictor of happiness and longevity as we age is maintaining strong friendships.
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That Brief Post 9/11 Feeling is Long Gone
Prompted By Disunited States
/ Stories
Our country’s response of togetherness and patriotism in the immediate aftermath of the terrorists bring down the Twin Towers with airplanes was the last time I remembered feeling a sense of unity in our country.
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Unhoused People with Disabilities
Prompted By Homelessness
/ Stories
Sadly, many people who need care and supervision end up as part of the homeless population living in the streets.
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Good Enough
Prompted By Perfection
/ Stories
I’m one of those people who gets a task 95% completed and decides it is good enough.
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Crossing the Picket Line
Prompted By Strikes
/ Stories
I was raised in Michigan during the era when Walter Reuther advocated for workers’ rights, universal health care, public education, and affordable housing and the UAW was seen as a sacred, progressive union in my home. He and George Meany cofounded the AFL-CIO in 1955. Unions brought prosperity to middle class families, many of whom…
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Pandemic Prison
Prompted By Prison
/ Stories
The closest I can come to feeling imprisoned is how the pandemic impacted my freedom starting in March, 2020.
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The Flooded Basement and a Bit of Larceny
Prompted By Floods
/ Stories
Imagine my shock as a kid when I saw my parents throw a set of luggage into the rising waters flooding our basement.
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Love and Marriage – For our 50th Anniversary*
Prompted By Marriage
/ Stories
In 1967, I left my hometown in Michigan to move to Chicago with Fred, who would be starting medical school. Before I moved, I received several dire warnings from the women in my family. My great-aunt Sarah shared that she had read several cases in The Jewish Daily Forward’s “A Bintel Brief” about women who…
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What If …
Prompted By Fire
/ Stories
Now wild fires are added to the list of climate change based disasters, which may have been avoidable if only Gore had become president … and if only we had listened.
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Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head
Prompted By Rainy Days
/ Stories
They say man plans and God laughs. On the big day, it rained steadily from sun up to midnight.
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It’s the Shoes That Made Me Cry
Prompted By Art’s Impact
/ Stories
Jews were told to remove their shoes and then shot by the Hungarian Arrow Cross and pushed into the river. As one of our guides said, “They disappeared.” Only their shoes remained behind.
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The Day My Computer Blew Up
Prompted By Hacked!
/ Stories
My tried and true approach to all problems with technology: Turn it off and turn it back on. Nine times out of ten, the problem is mysteriously fixed.
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ER Nightmares
Prompted By The ER
/ Stories
If only George Clooney were waiting to treat me at the ER, perhaps the trip would be worth all of the wait and inconvenience.
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A Responsibility I Managed to Escape
Prompted By Jury Duty
/ Stories
I know my attitude is wrong. People are entitled to jury trials, and I would probably be a good juror (except for Trump).
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Solitude Found and Lost
Prompted By Isolation and Solitude
/ Stories
Still, I wonder if I had a bit more solitude, would I be more productive?
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A Trip to the Tot Lot, 1974
Prompted By Timing is Everything
/ Stories
We have been friends since that fateful day when we both decided to take a walk to the park at the same time.
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Early to Bed, Early to Rise
Prompted By Dawn
/ Stories
Maybe it’s our age, but here we are, no longer needing to get up at dawn but set in our ways.
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What Happens to Those Photos After a Divorce?
Prompted By Divorce
/ Stories
One of my favorite stories about my late mother-in-law, AKA Nana, was the group family photo taken at a wedding. She had a huge copy made, which hung prominently in her living room. She loved that picture. But when my youngest sister-in-law was divorced, what was she going to do with a beloved and expensive…
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Still Advocating
Prompted By Question Authority
/ Stories
When I started blogging, I named my blog “Still Advocating” — and indeed I am.
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Can’t Cut That Last Cord
Prompted By Cutting the Cord
/ Stories
I have cut lots of cords in my lifetime as technology changed, but I’m still afraid to let go of that last cord that enables me to understand how to operate my television.
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Wanting to be Susie S.
Prompted By Imitation
/ Stories
My journey through high school from 1959 to 1963 was more about what I wished I could be than about actually becoming my own person. For me, that didn’t happen until I left home for college.
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Walking a Mile in Her Walker
Prompted By Aging
/ Stories
“You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” — American saying, author unknown Part of aging is the physical breakdown of our bodies. I have tried to slow down the inevitable by working with a physical therapist weekly to strengthen my aching back and core (such as it is). Ironically, it…
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The Unconditional Love of a Mother
Prompted By Mother’s Day
/ Stories
Maybe Mother’s Day is the time to share the message my mother left on my phone with my children and grandchildren. I’m proud of you for just being who you are, and I love you unconditionally.
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Why I Can’t Sleep or Once Upon a Mattress
Prompted By Sleepy Time
/ Stories
I have a long history of poor sleep. When I was still working, a colleague and I used to joke that we should have called one another at 4:00 a.m. because we were both up at ridiculous o’clock every day.
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The Smart Girl in the Room
Prompted By Intelligence
/ Stories
Hillary, I get you. I was you. Sadly, as my mother often advised me, it’s nice to be smart but be quiet about it.
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Anger and Guns — A Toxic Mix
Prompted By Danger
/ Stories
This is so not the world I had hoped to leave for my grandkids. It’s definitely time for a new generation to take over.
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Stranger Danger
Prompted By Talking to Strangers
/ Stories
In 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in Lower Manhattan.
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Finding a New Home Town
Prompted By Can You Go Home Again?
/ Stories
If home is the place “where everybody knows your name,” where you have friends that date back over 50 years, Evanston is my home town.
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Lightning Bolts
Prompted By Lightning
/ Stories
As Mark Twain said, “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
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Kitchen Musical Theater
Prompted By Theater
/ Stories
I guess I ended up with the wrong set of genes for my theatrical fantasies, but I’m really enjoying watching my granddaughter perform.
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Saying Goodbye to Mom
Prompted By Trauma
/ Stories
After my mother was pronounced dead, my sister-in-law handed me the diamond necklace Mom always wore.
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What Time is It?
Prompted By Changing Times
/ Stories
Since time is an arbitrary construct, I advocate for staying on Daylight savings time going forward.
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The Bat Mitzvah Ceremony
Prompted By Ceremony
/ Stories
I have been part of and attended many ceremonies in my lifetime, but on February 23, 2019, I experienced emotions I cannot find words to express.
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Retrospect Post Number 241
Prompted By Retrospect Retrospective
/ Stories
As we all take a well-deserved break for the month of January to reflect on the future of Retrospect, thanks to all who read and commented as I responded every week to the question, “What’s Your Story?”
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Homage to Three Computers
Prompted By My First Computer
/ Stories
It wasn’t until 2006 that I actually bought a computer for myself, my beloved iMac-7.1.
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The Lake is East
Prompted By Directionally Challenged
/ Stories
As long as I know where the lake is, I know I am headed east.
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Dentist!
Prompted By The Dentist
/ Stories
Steve Martin’s role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors captured how many of us feel about going to the dentist.
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The Highchair
Prompted By Retail Rewards
/ Stories
I was gifted an unsafe, flimsy, and frankly ugly aluminum highchair purchased with green stamps.
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Pillow Fight
Prompted By Family Feud
/ Stories
Of course, the feud’s origin dated back decades before the pillow incident.
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Flashbulb Memories: Three Assassinations
Prompted By Assassination
/ Stories
Flash bulb memories: three assassinations that shaped my world view from age 18 to 23.
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I Quit My Job and My Life Changed
Prompted By Changed My Life
/ Stories
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
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The Whole World is Watching
Prompted By First Time Voting
/ Stories
I have learned over all these years and in every election, voting is a sacred honor and every vote matters. The whole world is watching.
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Finding the Perfect Gift
Prompted By From Catalogs to Amazon
/ Stories
When my kids were young, they eagerly anticipated the Toys R Us holiday gift catalog every November.
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Cooking Lessons
Prompted By Learning To Cook
/ Stories
My childhood cookbook was filled with images of perky girls wearing aprons (whatever happened to my aprons?) serving food to guys in sport coats and crew cuts.
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Plane and Train Fails
Prompted By Planes and Trains
/ Stories
We hated the drive to Detroit to visit my family when our three kids were young. In those days, it was six hours of torture. They were not great car travelers and entertainment options were limited to coloring and puzzle books, my reading to or singing with them, and I Spy type games. When boredom…
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A Sucker for Cinderella
Prompted By Favorite Fairy Tale
/ Stories
When I saw the original classic Disney cartoon (1950) of Cinderella as a child, I totally bought into her song of "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes."
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When You Can’t Afford Feathers
Prompted By Feathering Our Nests
/ Stories
Our first nest was rather humble. We really couldn’t afford to do much feathering of this nest.
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The Lost Art of Customer Service
Prompted By Customer Service
/ Stories
As sexist as it is, I do miss the old Marshall Field’s mantra, “Give the lady what she wants.”
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The Last Time I Got High
Prompted By Drugs and Alcohol
/ Stories
Woodstock was truly a film best enjoyed when stoned.
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Sending our Children to College
Prompted By Priciest Purchase
/ Stories
Even including our home of 45 years, our priciest purchase was our children’s educations.
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For Mr. Hollander, Ms. Vit, and Linda
Prompted By Favorite Teacher
/ Stories
A favorite teacher lives forever in our hearts.
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Procrastinate Much?
Prompted By Procrastination
/ Stories
I was always the girl who was on time, organized, and started assignments well before they were due.
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Watching “Fiddler” with People Who Lived It
Prompted By Memorable Performances
/ Stories
My cousin Annette and I took our grandparents to see Fiddler on the Roof performed at Detroit’s beautiful Fisher Theater. The Google machine tells me this happened prior to the show’s Broadway debut, so it was either in 1963 or early 1964. We were lucky to see Zero Mostel in the role of Tevya. In…
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Pick a Card
Prompted By Do You Believe in Magic?
/ Stories
Pick a card. Any card. How many times has a kid asked you to do that?
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Bike Stories
Prompted By Riding a Bicycle
/ Stories
I have no memory of learning to ride an actual bike.
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Our Cars Needed Maintenance
Prompted By Car Trouble
/ Stories
After buying our first used car, a 1960 Dodge Dart with push button transmission, we learned the value of having a good mechanic.
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Two Family Treasures
Prompted By What I Own That's Older Than I Am
/ Stories
I probably have other more valuable things that are older than I am, but these are the two I treasure the most.
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And That’s the Way It Is … Or Was
Prompted By Broadcast News
/ Stories
My first memory of broadcast news is the image of my mother madly ironing while watching something on television that clearly angered her, the Army-McCarthy hearings. I was just a kid and thus she never explained to me why she kept watching this when it was clearly upsetting her. I guess my grandkids could wonder…
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Lauren Bacall marries Fredric March
Prompted By What's in a Name
/ Stories
The names selected by our parents were ones they favored from popular movie stars — Lauren for me after Lauren Bacall and Fredric for him for Fredric March.
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Writing My Way into Retirement
Prompted By Why We Write
/ Stories
But if I must confess the truth, I write for myself because that is who I am.
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Âllo Oui
Prompted By Lost in Translation
/ Stories
We knew from past experience that we would struggle in Paris unless our kids helped, which they refused to do.
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Good Talk, Dad
Prompted By What My Father Told Me
/ Stories
As I mark my tenth Father’s Day without having a father, I am thinking about this most important choice my father helped me to make.
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Flamingo Surprise
Prompted By Special Birthdays
/ Stories
If I live to be 90 like my parents, my children are free to surprise me. Just no flamingos this time.
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Not Woke But Trying
Prompted By Mind the Gap
/ Stories
While I am far from woke, I really want to learn.
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Bedtime Rituals
Prompted By Sleepy Time
/ Stories
As a child, I remember being told, “go to bed.” This meant brush your teeth and use the bathroom. Whether or not my parents read to me is a lost memory. If I had trouble falling asleep, the remedy was a glass of warm milk. The first actual bedtime rituals I remember were for my…
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Maus
Prompted By Banned Books
/ Stories
On May 10, 1933, university students burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books in Berlin’s Opera Square (pictured below). 40,000 people gathered to hear Nazi chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, make a speech in which he said, “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Sound familiar? This past January, the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee…
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Sheyn Aoygn (Pretty Eyes)
Prompted By The Eyes Have It
/ Stories
My eyes were dark brown, but the Hollywood ideal was a blue-eyed blond. Thus, I pondered what I could do to make myself more attractive in the eye department.
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My Mama Told Me …
Prompted By What My Mother Told Me
/ Stories
You Better Shop Around and Ten Other Useful Bits of Advice
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Buster Ware
Prompted By Auctions and Raffles
/ Stories
Who would spend $1,000 on a serving for four of plastic dishes and mugs adorned with a photo of the class guinea pig, Buster?
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Granddaughter of Refugees
Prompted By Refugees
/ Stories
The current Ukrainian refugee crisis reminds me that my grandparents were refugees who left their families and the only homes they had known to come to America in the beginning of the 20th century.
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Groundhog Day
Prompted By Pandemic, Year Three
/ Stories
As Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It's déjà vu all over again.”
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The Best Pictures Ever
Prompted By Photo Booths
/ Stories
There was something about cramming into a small booth that made the old photo booths special.
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Cheap Lodgings
Prompted By Hotels, Motels, Inns, and Hostels
/ Stories
Of all of the cheap places we stayed when my husband and I took an eight-week trip to Europe and Israel, Victor Mattace’s pensione was the worst.
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How Cheating has Changed
Prompted By Cheating
/ Stories
It’s hard to explain to my grandkids what honesty looks like. And I certainly can’t tell them that cheaters never prosper.
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The Basement Beckons
Prompted By Basements and Attics
/ Stories
Our grungy basement was perfect for free play, a thing all kids need.
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Marking Time
Prompted By Time
/ Stories
I am living in a time warp, totally unmoored from any sense of day or even month.
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How to Use a Drill
Prompted By Some Assembly Required
/ Stories
Now, I remember why I hate Ikea.
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Scouting Disasters
Prompted By Scouting
/ Stories
What I do remember from my early teen years is being the Den Mother for my youngest brother’s Cub Scout pack.
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Soapy Masterpieces
Prompted By Guilty Pleasures
/ Stories
One guilty pleasure I share with my husband is PBS Masterpiece Theater serials
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Hey Jude
Prompted By One Song That Moves Me
/ Stories
No matter how many times I hear Hey Jude, I am always moved to tears.
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No More Snow Days
Prompted By Snowy Days
/ Stories
On 2/2/22, my granddaughter’s school declared a “snow day” during a moderate snow storm that ended mid-afternoon. Parents and teachers were upset because the school made the call late, when staff and students who arrive early for before school activities were already there. Perhaps the strange date filled with twos made the day feel auspicious.…
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The Staff of Life
Prompted By Comfort Food
/ Stories
If I’m being honest, my main source of eaten comfort is a good slice of bread.
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The Sunday Paper
Prompted By Newspapers
/ Stories
Still, on a quiet Sunday there is nothing more relaxing than working my way through that pile of newspapers.
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Never Stand on the Edge of a Family Photo …
Prompted By Group Photos
/ Stories
Taking those grand family photos is not a thing for my children’s generation.
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Living in a Snow Globe
Prompted By Snowy Days
/ Stories
I don’t remember ever feeling cold when I played outside on snowy days as a child. I know my kids and grandkids could enjoy it for hours. Even my granddogs loved a snowy day.
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Road Trip to Cleveland
Prompted By Highways and Byways
/ Stories
Long before President Eisenhower built the interstate highways, my grandfather, Philip Krut, drove his family from Detroit to Cleveland.
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I Will Survive
Prompted By Resolutions
/ Stories
I’ve never been big on making resolutions because I know I will never keep them. But this prompt asks me to ponder the topic. Thus, in 2022, I resolve to … Stay sane Be healthy Keep my anxiety under control Stop making “suggestions” to my middle-aged kids See friends and family in person when it’s…
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A Christmas Letter from an Old Friend
Prompted By Holiday Letters
/ Stories
What is it about a friendship that stays with you forever, even when your communication is reduced to an annual letter and a few emails and phone calls?
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From the Mouths of Babes
Prompted By Comic Relief
/ Stories
Early childhood educators often find relief through the funny and endearing things their young charges do and say. Sometimes, you just have to laugh.
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Whoever Gossips to You, Will Gossip About You
Prompted By Gossip
/ Stories
The Spanish proverb that is the title of my story is a painful lesson I learned as a young adult. Growing up in a traditional Jewish household, I was taught two Jewish proverbs as a child: “What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth.” “Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.”…
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Tossing the Dice
Prompted By Dice
/ Stories
Not easy for a woman who hates to gamble. But nothing in life is ever a sure bet.
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Why I’m Grateful This Thanksgiving
Prompted By An Attitude of Gratitude
/ Stories
I love Thanksgiving and taking time to feel grateful for the blessings in my life.
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From House Calls to No Calls
Prompted By Family Medicine
/ Stories
All of this makes me long for the days when most health care was affordable and doctors were reachable by simply calling their office.
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Not Part of the Chain Gang
Prompted By Chain Letters
/ Stories
Chain letters were never my thing.
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The Final Farewell
Prompted By Regrets
/ Stories
I wish I had been able to be with him to tell him I loved him and hold his hand. I will always regret not being there for that final farewell.
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The Halloween-Industrial Complex
Prompted By Trick or Treat?
/ Stories
When did Halloween evolve into such a huge deal? I have a hard time remembering much about Halloween from my childhood. Perhaps that’s because I am trying to recall memories from 65 years ago. Once, I asked my mother what costumes I wore for Halloween, and she informed me that it really wasn’t that important…
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Some Pandemic-Flavored Lemonade
Prompted By Lemons to Lemonade
/ Stories
But I do think some of the changes necessitated by the pandemic will be positive ones if we choose to learn from them.
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New Rules: Parking
Prompted By Parking
/ Stories
I love to shop local and support the small businesses that still exist in my community, but the first consideration is always parking.
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Where Have All the Bookstores Gone?
Prompted By Children's Books
/ Stories
Bring your children to experience wandering among shelves of actual books before it is too late. And don’t forget to visit and support your local library.
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Booka-booka-booka
Prompted By Children's Books
/ Stories
One of my fondest memories of raising my children was cuddling up at bedtime with a book and reading together.
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Sock it to Me
Prompted By Variety Shows
/ Stories
I was never a lover of Ed Sullivan (except for the famous Beatles performance) or Carol Burnett, but boy did I enjoy Rowan and Martin and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
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Not a Goldfish
Prompted By Attention Span
/ Stories
After I retired, I joined the board of the preschool I had founded as a community representative. We were planning our 25th anniversary year celebration, which was to include a video of the founding, history, and philosophy of the school. It was during a discussion about this video that I learned that people in 2017…
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The Death of the Family Dinner
Prompted By Mealtime
/ Stories
The demise of the family dinner is definitely a loss.
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Trying to Recapture the Power of Community and Caring
Prompted By 9/11 Twenty Years Later
/ Stories
Those preschoolers who started school on September 11, 2001, may not remember that day, but I hope they will be able to recapture the sense of community, caring, and working for the common good that we felt back then.
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Cars, Cars, Cars
Prompted By Going to Work
/ Stories
As a native of the Motor City, everyone I knew drove to work.
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Punch Lists and Prayers
Prompted By Home Repair
/ Stories
Next hurtle – what contractor in his right mind would undertake this project with such an unrealistic budget and very tight timeline? It was now June and we needed to open the school in September.
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From This Old House to Property Brothers
Prompted By Home Repair
/ Stories
My husband only occasionally engaged in DIY projects with me “supervising,” but we did live for 45 years in a house built in 1911. And we loved our old house, despite its frequent need for repairs.
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Memento Mori
Prompted By Senior Moments
/ Stories
It’s easy to laugh about senior moments when your parents lived long lives with their faculties intact. Not so easy for my friend whose mother and uncles all developed Alzheimer’s.
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How Dating Rules Evolved
Prompted By Dating
/ Stories
As I reflect on dating from the time I became a teen to that fateful night when I met my husband-to-be, it was a pretty bleak time for a female.
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Our Grand Summer Trip
Prompted By That Summer
/ Stories
Thankfully, one summer 52 years ago my husband I made an impractical and probably irresponsible choice. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of our lives.
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Deep Fried Butter
Prompted By State or County Fair
/ Stories
But that food! I never knew everything imaginable could be fried.
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Paper Dolls, Potholders, and Pies
Prompted By Hobbies
/ Stories
Looking back at my hobbies as a young girl, I realize how passive and home-bound they were.
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Now for Happy Anniversary*
Prompted By Anniversaries
/ Stories
I come from a family that marked every special occasion with a family photo.
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April 19, 2015
Prompted By Anniversaries
/ Stories
I will never forget the actual anniversary of the day my mother died, April 19, 2015.
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Traveling Abroad with Kids
Prompted By Family Trips
/ Stories
I wondered if they would have been just as happy going to a resort near home that had a pool.
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Enough
Prompted By Guns Then and Now
/ Stories
My grandkids live in a very different world, characterized by mass shootings, increasing gun ownership, and everyday violence that claims so many lives in cities like Chicago near where I live.
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Why My Purse is so Heavy
Prompted By Can't Leave Home Without It
/ Stories
I have tried buying smaller, light weight purses to spare my back. But that will only work if I don’t overload them until they are bursting with essentials that I can’t leave home without. Or so I think. I’m going to inventory the contents of my smallish summer purse. Here are the items that are…
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Double Jeopardy
Prompted By Quiz and Game Shows
/ Stories
My parents loved most of the game and quiz shows that were popular when I was growing up.
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The Club No One Expects to Join
Prompted By Cliques and Clubs
/ Stories
Loving a child with disabilities grants you membership to a club which people never aspire to join.
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How Katerina Became Bert and Other Pet Name Tales
Prompted By Naming Pets
/ Stories
Allowing kids to name their pets leads to the most creative and special pet names.
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From Reusing Tin Foil to Recycling Tons of Plastic
Prompted By Recycling
/ Stories
I remember my grandparents’ version of recycling, best summed up by the saying “waste not want not.”
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Canceling Michael and Woody
Prompted By Separating the Art from the Artist
/ Stories
Michael Jackson’s actions were so unforgivable that I cringe when I hear his music. But now that he’s gone, is it okay to dance? I’m not sure.
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Radio Guys
Prompted By Remembering Radios
/ Stories
Reflecting on radio, I remember my father and my middle brother, both of whom depended on it to survive.
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Just a Housewife
Prompted By Stay-at-Home Parent
/ Stories
This Mother’s Day, I salute my mother and all who understand and appreciate the importance and challenges of what she called being “just a housewife.”
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All Vaccinated and Nowhere to Go
Prompted By Vaccination
/ Stories
For now, our lives as vaccinated people are better, but we still question every decision we make about getting back to whatever normal will be.
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Tech Support
Prompted By Technology Tribulations
/ Stories
Now, I’m starting to know how my mother felt about tech support — dazed and confused.
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On the Sixth Anniversary of my Mother’s Death
Prompted By Those We Miss
/ Stories
My mother’s absence is part of my daily life now. But there are still times when the wound still feels fresh.
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Remembering An Affair to Remember
Prompted By Rewatchable Movies
/ Stories
Amazingly, An Affair to Remember, the movie women of my generation shed pools of tears over, just turned sixty-four.
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Some Manners I Don’t Miss
Prompted By Manners
/ Stories
Here are a few manners I didn’t pass on to my kids …
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The Children Always Left Behind
Prompted By Inequality
/ Stories
Virtual schooling has been judged to be a failure for many children, especially those disadvantaged by ability or challenging circumstances in their home lives.
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Racial Awakening
Prompted By Inequality
/ Stories
Growing up, the only people of color I knew were our cleaning woman, Pam, and a series of successors whose names I can’t recall.
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Top Ten Pet Peeves
Prompted By Pet Peeves
/ Stories
I forget what #10 was. Getting harder to remember stuff.
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Making Peace with my Hair
Prompted By Haircuts
/ Stories
I ended up with neither straight nor curly hair. I have tried to push my hair one way or the other all of my life.
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What Did I Miss?
Prompted By One Year of the Pandemic
/ Stories
This past year has made me realize what really matters most to me.
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Mickey Mouse’s Roller Coaster and Other Junk Peddled to Kids
Prompted By Advertising Jingles and Slogans
/ Stories
Note: No children were warped by their exposure to this junk.
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My Screen Memory
Prompted By First Memory
/ Stories
My screen memory is actually about my baby brother and my wish that he would disappear.
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The Ties That Bind Us
Prompted By Reconnecting
/ Stories
My reconnecting stories begin with ways to rekindle old ties that have fallen away over the years.
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Valentine’s Day Grinch
Prompted By Valentine's Day
/ Stories
Preschoolers understand and need expressions of love and caring every day. Come to think of it, so do most people.
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Hats Off
Prompted By Hats
/ Stories
The last time I wore a hat, aside from ugly winter wear on below zero days, was the beret in my featured image.
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Here Comes the Sun
Prompted By Inaugurations
/ Stories
When Jon Bon Jovi kicked off the evening’s entertainment singing Here Comes the Sun as the Florida sun rose in the background, I felt the optimism that comes with a sunrise after a dark and stormy night.
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Teaching my Grandkids to Make Good Trouble
Prompted By Good Trouble
/ Stories
My message to my grandkids and their peers is to stand up for what you believe in and then to go out and make some noise. I will always be proud of you for any “good trouble” you create along the way.
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The Sunday Painter
Prompted By Art and Art Museums
/ Stories
My father instilled an appreciation for art in me, filtered through his lens of what constituted good art.
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You Will Survive
Prompted By Letter to My Younger Self
/ Stories
Losing a pregnancy is a very low time in any woman’s life. I’m writing to tell you that you survived, and you thrived.
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Whatever Happened to “You’re Welcome”?
Prompted By Thank You
/ Stories
Growing up, I was taught that the proper reply to being thanked was, “You’re welcome.”
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Bingeing Keeps me Sane
Prompted By What Are You Bingeing?
/ Stories
I fear I’m talking about what we find on television to pass the time as we head into our ninth month of the pandemic.
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Winter Solstice 2020
Prompted By Hello Darkness
/ Stories
4:20 PM central standard time. Darkness descends. No sunrise until 7:17. Dark dominates for fifteen hours. Pandemic fear grips me. More than 311,000 people dead. Isolation. Zooms — too many zooms. News — too much news. Books begun and abandoned. Sunday Times unfinished. Too cold to visit outside in Chicago. 34 degrees numbs fingers and…
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Two Long Shot Interviews That Paid Off
Prompted By Interviews
/ Stories
Thinking back as Retrospect asks me to do, I had only two job interviews in a 25-year career in education.
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I Can’t Live Without Spell Check
Prompted By Spelling
/ Stories
For someone who loves to write, being a terrible speller used to be my Achilles heel.
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What Volunteering Taught Me
Prompted By Volunteering
/ Stories
I learned the most from my years of volunteering at a well-run school under the leadership of the man who became my mentor, Warren Cherry.
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No Turkey Dinner This Year
Prompted By Pandemic Holidays
/ Stories
The winter of my discontent has arrived and I’m feeling exhausted and so sad. There is no turkey to carve.
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Ribbon Barrettes
Prompted By Fads and Trends
/ Stories
My pre-teen daughters spend hours weaving the ribbon in/out of the barrette, creating colorful patterns that match every outfit they own.
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The Tenth One Goes to Michigan
Prompted By Buttons, Pins, and Badges
/ Stories
1963, the year I started college, was a rather schizophrenic time for women. There were glimmerings of feminism and social activism, but a lot of the old expectations for women lived side-by-side with these new ideas.
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The Kindness of a Child
Prompted By Random Acts of Kindness
/ Stories
He climbed up the slide like a superhero, reassuring the child not to worry saying, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here for you. I’ll go down with you.”
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Haunted by the 2000 Election
Prompted By Ghosts of Elections Past
/ Stories
On this Halloween, I pray the results of the upcoming election do not make it into another one that haunts me. Our country deserves a treat rather than a trick this time.
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I’m Persisting, I’m Speaking, and I’m Voting
Prompted By Buttons, Pins, and Badges
/ Stories
Random thoughts from a nasty woman facing a long winter … One of my favorite political memes is “Nevertheless, she persisted,” said by Mitch McConnell to Elizabeth Warren back in February of 2017. She refused to be silenced while reading a letter into the Senate record written by Coretta Scott King opposing Jeff Sessions for…
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How Computers Wrecked What Really Mattered
Prompted By Life Before Computers
/ Stories
The more computer savvy I became, the less contact I had with those little humans who mattered so much to me.
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Shoes That Made Me Cry
Prompted By Shoes
/ Stories
As one of our guides said, “They disappeared.” Only their shoes remained behind. Some of them were so tiny.
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Walking Away from Home in my Weejuns
Prompted By Shoes
/ Stories
Weejuns represented my journey in college to becoming my own person.
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Good Funerals
Prompted By Final Farewell
/ Stories
Funerals were forbidden when I was growing up. They were mysterious events my parents attended with other adults. My first introduction to this final rite of passage was my grandfather Philip Krut’s funeral on May 2, 1972. I was 26 years old and the mother of a one-year-old. Did I attend alone? Were my husband…
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Bar/Bat Mitzvah Reflections Over Generations
Prompted By Rites of Passage
/ Stories
In Judaism, turning thirteen is a big deal. For generations, boys were called to read from the Torah in a ceremony called a bar mitzvah, which marked their entry as an adult into the Jewish community. This was a boys-only club until March 18, 1922, when American rabbi Mordecai Kaplan held the first bat mitzvah…
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My Write Brain
Prompted By Brain Games
/ Stories
I was 68 when my “write brain” took over. I have written over 800 stories and a book since I retired. While I don’t do brain games, my brain is far from idle. In fact, it may be a bit too busy.
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The Rose Garden
Prompted By The Garden
/ Stories
I still have her pictures somewhere on my phone, but more importantly, I have the memory of sharing those wonderful summer days in the Rose Garden.
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Meditation on Turning 75
Prompted By Lost and Found
/ Stories
The lost part of turning 75 on is easy to write. Yet, I hope I have found the perspective and patience to look forward rather than to wallow in the misery of the present.
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Dancing with the Stars, 1960s Version
Prompted By Fame
/ Stories
It is so true that, as Andy Warhol famously said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” During the summers of my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I indulged my interest in theater by becoming an apprentice at Northland Playhouse in the newly built Northland Mall in a suburb of…
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How Yard Sales Created and Almost Destroyed a School
Prompted By Yard Sales
/ Stories
I stayed away from yard sales for many years after that experience, but starting Cherry Preschool with no money meant I would have to become a garage and yard sale lover.
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My Report Card for Eight Vows I Made to Parent Differently
Prompted By I Swore I'd Never
/ Stories
Looking back, there were many things my mother did that were wonderful. And yet, I had a list of eight things I swore I would never do as a parent.
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We Could Use Some Middle Children These Days
Prompted By Birth Order
/ Stories
As we mark Middle Child Day, I think we are missing folks who embody the stereotypical qualities of middle children.
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First Born Daughter
Prompted By Birth Order
/ Stories
I’m pretty sure my younger brothers would agree that, even at our ages and retired persons status, I can still be pretty bossy.
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Can Friendship and Forgiveness Coexist?
Prompted By Forgiveness
/ Stories
Can you forgive a friend? My answer is a resounding “yes.” In fact, it goes beyond something you can do to something you must do.
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Pandemic Generations Struggle Through Summer
Prompted By Pandemic Summer
/ Stories
Our country has failed this generation of children whose lives will be forever defined by their experiences during the pandemic.
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My Grandkids Can’t Read my Recipe Cards
Prompted By Cursive — Curse or Blessing?
/ Stories
So why couldn't they read the neatly transcribed directions? Well, because they were written in cursive.
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Embracing Sarah Bernhardt
Prompted By Protests
/ Stories
As I grew older, I learned to embrace the Sarah Bernhardt in me. I came to see it as having the courage of my convictions and the ability to stand up for what I believed.
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A Life Devoted to Protesting for Justice: Marcy Wiersch Johnson
Prompted By Protests
/ Stories
They were marching partly as a tribute to Marcy, a woman whose life embodied so much of what protests and activism had accomplished to advance the cause of social justice.
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From Motown to E-town
Prompted By My Hometown
/ Stories
Still, this is my hometown. I love it for the amazing people I have met here and its overall caring heart and beauty.
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Lost a Friend, Gained a Spouse
Prompted By Chance Encounters
/ Stories
That chance meeting ended up being the longest date of my life. It has lasted 54 years.
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Walk Easy in Dancing
Prompted By Embarrassment
/ Stories
As I approached Jeffrey, my face crimson, he uttered the word that doomed me – relax.
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What’s Life? A Magazine
Prompted By Magazines
/ Stories
For me, magazines are like comfort food. Not necessarily good for me, but all I want to read when I’m sick or feeling low.
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Aunt Mickey
Prompted By Aunts & Uncles
/ Stories
She was the fun aunt – the one who let me do everything my mother forbid.
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The Shadow Box
Prompted By Memorabilia
/ Stories
After both of my parents had died, I was left with some special memorabilia and a powerful need to remember them.
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Look What I Found
Prompted By Memorabilia
/ Stories
When we decided to downsize and move from our home of 45 years to a condo, we never dreamed we would have so much time to sort and travel down memory lane. Deciding what to keep or donate or discard became a DIY project during our #stayathome approach to being seniors who should avoid exposure…
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Sacred Recipes
Prompted By Recipes
/ Stories
The sacred recipes I shared have a few things in common. They are easy to create, and they bring people joy.
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My Grandma’s Superstitious Surprise
Prompted By Superstition
/ Stories
Her superstitions were old wives’ tales she brought to America from the old country as a girl.
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Shalimar
Prompted By Fragrant Flashbacks
/ Stories
I rushed home and sprayed myself with Shalimar. It wasn’t a strong scent, but I could smell my mother’s perfume.
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Coronavirus Craziness Plus Moving Madness
Prompted By Pandemic - Pandemonium or Panacea?
/ Stories
Trying my best to “keep calm and carry on.”
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Ding Dong, Avon Calling
Prompted By Door-to-Door Sales
/ Stories
Looking back, “Ding dong, Avon calling,” was an important stepping stone for my mother to gain confidence in an era in which people actually answered their doorbells.
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When Frightening Dreams Come True
Prompted By Dreams
/ Stories
My worst dreams have become a reality as we struggle through these endless days of #stayathome.
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Passover Present and Past
Prompted By Spring Celebrations
/ Stories
When we got to reciting the ten plagues during our Zoom seder, I know all of us were thinking about an eleventh one that kept us apart this year.
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Story of the (Almost) Lost Child*
Prompted By Close Calls
/ Stories
We went to Paris and Israel in 1984, the year our son turned thirteen. It was a wonderful trip marred by a few unforeseen catastrophes, the greatest of which was almost losing his little sister. Our daughters were ten and seven, and it was our youngest who gave me one of the most frightening close…
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A Rose by Any Other Name
Prompted By Nicknames
/ Stories
Do I dare to gift myself with my true name of Lauren? Probably too late, and after all, no one calls me “Big Laurie” anymore. Mostly, I go by Gramma.
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COVID-19 Panic – The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
Prompted By Vacation or Staycation from Hell
/ Stories
Life as we know it has ground to a halt. This is the staycation from hell that no one planned or wanted.
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A Lifetime of Tribes
Prompted By Community
/ Stories
My life has been enriched by every community I have been part of, every group with which I have shared a common goal and a connection.
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To My Fellow Caregivers in the Waiting Room
Prompted By Caregiving
/ Stories
Some of the most loving people I have ever seen are the parents and caregivers in waiting rooms of speech pathologists, occupational therapists, play therapists, physical therapists, and almost any place that works with children who have disabilities.
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When Women Do the Asking
Prompted By Leap Day
/ Stories
I remember feeling passive and helpless when it came to dating.
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The Real Story Behind my Parents’ Love Letters
Prompted By Family Myths
/ Stories
Now that my parents are gone, I realize there were so many questions I wish I had asked them. All I have now are their letters to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of the years between when they met and their marriage.
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Soupy Sales vs Mister Rogers
Prompted By Children's TV Shows
/ Stories
I wish our country’s leadership and values embodied less of Soupy Sales and more of Fred Rogers these days.
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Unretired: How Writing Gave me a Purpose
Prompted By Retirement
/ Stories
Now when someone asks what I do, I answer for myself. I’m unretired and I’m writing and having a blast.
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Da Bears!
Prompted By Super Bowl
/ Stories
Thirty-five years after the giddy fun of singing the Super Bowl Shuffle and celebrating Da Bears’ victory, this former Superfan is done.
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A Christmas Letter from an Old Friend
Prompted By Snail Mail
/ Stories
It’s several pages of blue ink on real stationery that’s crammed full of things I want to know: the health of her husband, the latest project she is working on, what her three sons are doing, and cute anecdotes about her grandkids.
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Who Will Take my Grandmother’s Teacups?
Prompted By Moving Day
/ Stories
So yes, it is time to get started. But first, I have to find a good home for this Waterford bowl my aunt gave me when I got married.
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Finding my Lost Old Friends
Prompted By Tracking People Down
/ Stories
As I age, I reflect back over all of the people who were important to me for a period of time and then lost as our lives took different paths.
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The Button Box and Other Stuff I Should Toss
Prompted By Get Organized
/ Stories
My husband has shirts and sweatshirts hanging in this closet that fit into the category of “I thought I had a shirt that I used to wear with this sweater but it’s gone.”
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My Mother’s Art of Tidying Up
Prompted By Get Organized
/ Stories
I lack my mother’s passion for tidying up. So I have decided to embrace the clutter in my life and put my energy into things that really “spark joy.”
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Celebrating the New Year Over a Lifetime
Prompted By The New Year
/ Stories
Looking over the ways I have celebrated the New Year, it’s hard to remember why it used to be such a big deal.
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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Prompted By Quick Take: New Movies
/ Stories
I’ve enjoyed some of the movies that have made top ten lists. Parasite, The Irishman, JoJo Rabbit, and Marriage Story are particularly good among the ones I have been able to see. But my favorite movie of the year for pure enjoyment is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was released this summer, so people…
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Holidays Leave Me Overwhelmed and Nostalgic
Prompted By Holidaze
/ Stories
I have no control over the holidaze. The only thing I can control is how I respond to it.
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Annette
Prompted By Cousins
/ Stories
Annette was more like the sister I always wished for than a cousin.
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The Sharing Tree
Prompted By Charity
/ Stories
I hope the preschoolers we taught remember that charity begins in our hearts and in the way we treat one another.
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Remembering Babyhood with Love
Prompted By Baby Books
/ Stories
When I thumb through my mother’s attempt to memorialize my early childhood, it doesn’t really matter what she wrote or what she saved. The love with which she did it is what endures.
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Surprise, You’re Pregnant
Prompted By Surprise!
/ Stories
Becoming pregnant was shrouded in mystery back then. There was always an element of surprise when I became pregnant.
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Ok, Boomer
Prompted By Ageism
/ Stories
Young people are using the phrase OK, boomer to indicate disdain for folks of my generation.
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My Celebrity Crushes
Prompted By The Crush
/ Stories
In July of 2018, Arthur Andrew Gelien died. I knew him as Tab Hunter and had his picture pasted in a scrapbook devoted to my celebrity crushes. I was my granddaughter’s age when I swooned to his song Young Love and watched him in the movie Damn Yankees. He was cute and, like several of…
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When Hated-Filled Bullying Replaces Hope and Change
Prompted By Bullying
/ Stories
I want to put my grandkids in a bubble to keep them from seeing all of the hatred and bullying out there since Trump descended that golden escalator.
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Grandma and the Mean Girl Dolls
Prompted By Bullying
/ Stories
I hoped my granddaughter and her peers would embrace the importance of sisterhood before the Mean Girl games of middle school took over.
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Suicide Mission to the Library
Prompted By Libraries
/ Stories
There is nothing I love more than reading to young children. I felt like we had fallen into a treasure trove of great entertainment.
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The Day My Computer Blew Up
Prompted By Hacks and Scams
/ Stories
This was originally published in Retrospect on October 12, 2019 under the prompt Hacked and Scammed. Although I have been hacked other times, it is still my favorite story of being hacked. The screen froze. A red, pulsing light covered QuickBooks, accompanied by a loud, persistent beep. I froze in horror, as this old laptop…
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Suburbia 1950s Style: Little Boxes
Prompted By Home
/ Stories
Suburbia and my mother were grooming me for my future occupation of Mom.
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The American Child Care Dilemma
Prompted By Nannies and Babysitters
/ Stories
Parents check references and hope the person they hire is caring and competent. If they find Mary Poppins, they have to pray she doesn’t quit without notice.
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House of Cards
Prompted By Games People Play
/ Stories
I grew up in a house of cards. Literally.
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Ten Games This Grandma Hates to Play
Prompted By Games People Play
/ Stories
I hope my children picture me as a doting grandmother, happily playing with their children, unburdened by the daily demands of parenting. And it’s true that one of the joys of having grandchildren is spending special time together. To me, that means reading books, drawing, going to the park, singing and dancing to Beatles tunes…
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My Micro-Road Rage
Prompted By Road Rage
/ Stories
September is National Courtesy Month, so I am making an extra effort to stay calm and be a polite driver. Just wish others would do the same.
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“There are Far Worse Things Than to Steal a Book”
Prompted By An Unforgettable Person
/ Stories
Warren taught me through example what it really meant to be a mensch, a good human being.
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Kindergarten over Three Generations
Prompted By Kindergarten
/ Stories
My youngest grandchild starts kindergarten next week. Here’s hoping he gets a loving teacher who understands that young children learn best in a play-based kindergarten.
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What’s Today’s Weather?
Prompted By Weather
/ Stories
What’s today’s weather? We really need to pay close attention.
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Woodstock, a Movie Best Seen Stoned
Prompted By Woodstock
/ Stories
Seeing the documentary movie version the summer of 1970 shaped my Woodstock experience.
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That Family Tree Assignment
Prompted By Genealogy
/ Stories
If I were a teacher these days, I would tread very lightly with that family tree assignment.
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Finding a Grandmother Lost to Mental Illness
Prompted By Genealogy
/ Stories
Pauline’s life had been destroyed by mental illness and institutionalization. But what had happened to her children as well as her grandchildren and great grandchildren? Was there a way to make something solid and meaningful from this tragedy?
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My Neighborhood – Both Actual and Virtual – And a Lost Tortoise
Prompted By Neighbors
/ Stories
When we work together, there is a greater chance we can solve the problem, from rescuing a tortoise to tackling the huge issues that plague our neighborhoods and our country.
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Banishing Boredom for Kids
Prompted By Boredom
/ Stories
Boredom is a state of mind that doesn’t need to exist, especially for children.
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Why I Missed the Moon Landing
Prompted By Moon Landing
/ Stories
I never actually saw the moon landing on television until long after it happened. On July 20, 1969, my husband and I were on what turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime, eight-week trip to Europe, Greece, and Israel. We had a vague notion that American astronauts had walked on the moon by looking at photos…
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Summer’s my Favorite Reading Season
Prompted By Beach Reads
/ Stories
As an educator, however, summer was always the reading season, and old habits die hard.
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The Bombs Bursting in Air
Prompted By Fireworks
/ Stories
I know I will hear those bombs bursting in air every July. And while the fireworks displays are beautiful, these sounds do not feel celebratory. They remind me of guns and war, not patriotism.
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Little Larcenies, White Lies, and Truthiness
Prompted By Honesty
/ Stories
Thus, I came to believe in truthiness in politics, a term coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005, which meant, “The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.”
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A Honeymoon Planned by my Mother-in-Law
Prompted By Honeymoon
/ Stories
I’ll always be grateful to my MIL for talking us into what was, back then, a glamorous honeymoon trip rather than spending a few days at a local resort or hotel.
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Lost a Friend, Gained a Spouse
Prompted By First Dates
/ Stories
It was also the night I committed the most anti-feminist act ever. I came with Paula but left with Fred.
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I Miss Shopping Local
Prompted By Shopping Local
/ Stories
After taking my grandkids to a real children’s bookstore and seeing their excitement, I feel sad that this experience may not be part of their lives as they grow up.
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An English Teacher
Prompted By College Majors as Career Gaugers
/ Stories
To me becoming an English teacher was a punchline. And yet, that is just where my college path led me.
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Random Social Media Photo Creates Connections
Prompted By Social Media Friendships
/ Stories
Such is the nature of social media friendships. They can wax and wane. But I still find it remarkable to feel close with someone I have never actually met.
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PE for Girls Over Three Generations
Prompted By PE Pleasures and Perils
/ Stories
I wish my PE perils had been more pleasurable and that I had learned activities I could have done all of my life.
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Exams Once Ruled My Life
Prompted By Exams
/ Stories
Exams once ruled my life. Now, having experienced many true tests over a lifetime, I realize that no amount of preparation guarantees a good result. It is what I do with the hand I’m dealt that truly matters.
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How My Mother Taught Me to Drive
Prompted By Learning to Drive
/ Stories
I had my first accident before I even had a driver’s license. Armed with my learner’s permit, I cautiously drove a few blocks to the A&P with my mother. When, we arrived, she pointed to a spot and told me to pull in there. I did, but I also bumped into the car in the…
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From Ducking Under Desks to Active Shooter Drills
Prompted By Cold War Coping
/ Stories
As part of the duck and cover generation, I despair that my legacy to today’s school children is a country in which they understand that there is no real safety as long as the gun culture persists.
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Earth Day 2019: The Notre Dame Fire
Prompted By Earth Day
/ Stories
This Earth Day, let’s keep in mind that our actions today can improve our health and well-being tomorrow, provide a brighter future for the next generation, and have beneficial consequences many generations from now that could never be foreseen today.
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The Taxman Cometh
Prompted By Taxes
/ Stories
From my father, I inherited the importance of honesty and fairness regarding taxes.
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Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 and Other Poetry in my Life
Prompted By Poetry
/ Stories
The first poem I remember from my childhood is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. I memorized it when I was young to impress my father, who was a huge history buff. Not a great poem, but I still remember some of it: Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the…
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When Spring Break Breaks You
Prompted By Spring Break
/ Stories
For my granddaughter with significant disabilities, spring break will literally break her, along with the rest of us.
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Frances Perkins: A Woman I Admire
Prompted By Women We Admire
/ Stories
Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor for all twelve years of his administration, was the first female cabinet secretary and a woman you should know and admire.
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Betrayed by a Church
Prompted By Betrayal
/ Stories
Ironically, being betrayed by a church led to the creation of an early childhood program based on values to which religious institutions should aspire: community, inclusion, acceptance, caring, kindness, and love for children.
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Starting a Marriage in a Garden Apartment
Prompted By My First Apartment
/ Stories
My first real apartment, not counting the college one with mean notes posted on the refrigerator to clean the bathroom and the dial removed from one roommate’s television so no one else could watch it, was the basement unit (AKA Garden Apartment) my new husband and I inhabited right after our wedding in August of…
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New Beginnings Over a Lifetime
Prompted By New Beginnings
/ Stories
I started writing for MyRetrospect in July of 2018, so I’m a relative newbie. John Zussman found a post I had written on another site and asked if he could use it. Then he asked if I wanted to write for Retrospect. I loved the format and, as a woman looking at her 70th birthday…
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Turning Points on Road to Retirement
Prompted By Turning Points
/ Stories
I have been thinking lately about the many different roads or turning points that have made up the map of my life thus far. Sometimes, the choice of path was the more traveled one. Sometimes, I chose the one less traveled by. Looking back on a lifetime of choices, it seems like some of the most important ones chose me.
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My Thing About Gifts
Prompted By Gifts
/ Stories
Lately, I have been thinking that, aside from the little ones in my life who love to tear open wrapping paper to find a new toy, the best gift may be the gift of time.
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Leaving Home
Prompted By Home
/ Stories
At some point, almost everyone experiences leaving home.
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A Valentine to My Grandkids
Prompted By Grandparents & Grandchildren
/ Stories
The thing that connects babies to their parents and children to their grandparents is love.
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For the Many Brown Eyed Girls Out There
Prompted By Songs We Sang
/ Stories
When the song came out we all took it as a tribute to brown eyed girls who were in love, and later to brown eyed girls in general.
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Temptation – My Battle to Resist Desserts
Prompted By Temptation
/ Stories
My mother loved to bake, a trait I inherited. The only way to avoid sweet treats and baked breads at home is to deny myself the pleasure of creating them.
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My Family’s Ever-Changing Thanksgiving Tradition
Prompted By Family
/ Stories
I look at this photo and sigh. This was my family’s Thanksgiving table seventy years ago. I’m the second child on the left, sharing a meal with two generations now gone. In fact, my dear cousin sitting directly across from me has also died. But the tradition of sharing a meal with folks you love…
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Hell No, We Won’t Go
Prompted By The Draft & Vietnam
/ Stories
Hell no, we won't go. And the truth is most people I knew didn't end up in Vietnam.
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The 2018 Midterm Election: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Prompted By Politics
/ Stories
All of my years as a faithful voter have taught me that it’s important to keep trying. Eventually, I hope our country will get what it needs.
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My “I Like Ike” Pin
Prompted By Politics
/ Stories
Actually, even as a lifelong Democrat (my parents indoctrinated me well), I kind of still like Ike.
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I’m the Sucker Who Falls for Practical Jokes, and I Hate It
Prompted By Pranks and Practical Jokes
/ Stories
I do have a sense of humor, but please don’t tease me or make me (or someone else because I’m an overly empathic person) the butt of a prank or practical joke.
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Pursuing the Perfect Purse
Prompted By Accessorize, Accessorize
/ Stories
Perfection in a purse is an elusive pursuit I am afraid I will never achieve. For now, I have taken a vow. No new purses.
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Baby Love
Prompted By Parenthood
/ Stories
Back in those days, young couples didn’t get dogs first so they could practice their future parenting skills. So my baby son was my proverbial first pancake.
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An MRI to the Tune of The Beatles
Prompted By Beatles vs Stones
/ Stories
And so ended my MRI trip down memory lane. It would be a long and winding road to repair what time had done to me. Once — as the Beatles reminded me — I was just 17. Now I am 71.
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I’m the Girl Who Still Loves Paul
Prompted By Beatles vs Stones
/ Stories
Yep, my heart went boom. I loved this music, and I adored Paul.
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Sorting Old Pictures – A Bittersweet Effort to Put Life in Order
Prompted By Good Riddance
/ Stories
For some pictures, it was easy to say good riddance. But the photos of people I love – that’s another matter.
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The Party That Rocked my Block
Prompted By Parties
/ Stories
My first two kids were pretty tame as teens, so when I learned about the ambulance in front of our house and every neighbor standing outside watching, it was a shock. Child #3 was far more social than her sibs, and she threw quite a party in my absence. Of course, my husband and I…
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The Family Dinner Bites the Dust
Prompted By What We Ate
/ Stories
These days, the concept of a family dinner has bitten the dust. My grandkids graze rather than sitting down as a family to eat.
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All the Single Ladies: Going Back to Middle School in Your Final Years
Prompted By Middle School
/ Stories
In so many ways, the senior living experience was a reincarnation of middle school. Men caused major mean girl issues, even for women in their eighties and nineties.
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My Summer Job – Hard Work for a Very Small Paycheck
Prompted By My First Paycheck
/ Stories
My first paycheck, and many meager ones that followed, taught me to respect people who work hard but earn little -- something to think about especially on Labor Day.
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Fame is Not the Same as Success
Prompted By Fame
/ Stories
Most successful people follow their dreams and achieve things that bring great meaning to their lives. For a very few, lightning will strike and they will become famous. But for most, the satisfaction will come from a job well done and a life well lived.
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My First Experience with a Computer was a Disaster
Prompted By Disasters
/ Stories
Disaster struck. My thesis had vanished. The computer had eaten it and refused to spit it out.
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Lines of Communication
Prompted By The Social Network
/ Stories
I have come full cycle from the days when the umbilical cord of my old kitchen connected me to my friends. Like my parents before me and my kids and grandkids, I now avoid long conversations. They cost me valuable time.
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Why I Love/Hate Facebook
Prompted By The Social Network
/ Stories
I get why Facebook can be a good thing. Like my mother, I love seeing photos of folks I know (although not so much their food). It’s fun to discover an old friend and learn about the latest news from a friend or relative I don't see very often. It is an interesting diversion as well as a way for me to get my blog posts out to folks who want to read them. But in the run-up to the 2016 election and after, Facebook has become something else: a place to spew hatred and divisiveness.
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1968: The Year Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Began
Prompted By 1968
/ Stories
Fifty years ago, on February 19, 1968, one of my personal heroes, Fred Rogers, launched his children’s show, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The PBS program, featuring a kindly man in a cardigan and blue sneakers, introduced millions of young children to the concepts of patience, kindness, acceptance, and caring for their neighbors. 1968 was the beginning of a frightening time that felt much like life does today in 2018. Perhaps this is why people weep at showings of Won’t You Be My Neighbor.
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