The station had a resident mechanic, who proceeded to put the station wagon we were in on a lift. In time the problem was diagnosed. The necessary part(s) had to be delivered from another location and then installed. Sooner or later. Turned out to be later
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The station had a resident mechanic, who proceeded to put the station wagon we were in on a lift. In time the problem was diagnosed. The necessary part(s) had to be delivered from another location and then installed. Sooner or later. Turned out to be later
Read More
"Do as you might have" . . . But the aunt in question rendered this simply as doozha mighta.
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Why? 'Cause I got to cross our street, and any other street, by myself.
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And then, I realized that a lens had fallen out. Jeez. While I was riding on the back of an open truck traveling at 65 miles an hour.
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Never intended to address this prompt. Until today, Saturday September 11, 2021.
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The president of the fair was a local fixture, Bligh Dodds . . . and he was straight out of Sinclair Lewis.
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My younger son was in nursery school at the time and his best buddy, Dugan, thought her name was “Fleabee”, to the amusement of us all.
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Visit the brand new transfer station, spanking clean. Return home and excitedly relate the news. "You're raving about a dump?" Never mind.
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Some dates are more memorable than others.
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I particularly liked the weekly feature from StoryCorps, personal stories narrated by one family member to another. Probably no surprise to this crowd.
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Let me pose a question: for a movie to qualify as “re”watchable does it first have to be watchable? What about Stupid Movies, the kind that seem to exist solely to celebrate their own inanity?
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The full description of the CWP program included an interesting reference to one of the takeaways from the course, something called “Trigger Finger Etiquette”. NO, NO, NO, that’s not “manners”.
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Barbara to Mom: “why doesn’t Tommy have to do this?”
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"Regular haircut?" "Yup." Made his day.
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Vaccines arrive. Like Brylcreem: a little jab'll do ya.
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But, of course, the iconic Alka-Seltzer ads featured little Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Bright-eyed and eager he pitched relief to the masses. Known far and wide, yes, but do you know Speedy's backstory?
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I’m sure that among the filmed “memories” are some that I truly recall, but after so many viewings of the home movies I can’t be sure. Is it real or is it Kodachrome II?
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(T)he point of these reminiscences isn’t a specific memory, it’s about the conversations that ensue about those memories.
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That was my first encounter with Hadley. I held her on my lap the entire time. Having this sunny, beautiful four-month-old niece was a welcome counterweight to my grief for my mom.
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So it starts with a headcount. Between them my parents had five siblings. All brothers. Uncle and, perhaps spousal Aunt possibilities abounded . . . . Alas
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And looking at how the dates fall I realize that it’s September 1979. Charlie was born Thursday September 27, 1979. Charlie and his mom came home from the hospital on Sunday the 30th. The day the picture was taken.
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(Mom) was drawn to challenging recipes. With mixed results. Her sardine pie became the stuff of family legend, firmly anchoring the bottom end of the results scale.
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Seems to me that Covid-19 has set the stage for the emergence of new superstitions.
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But getting back to fragrant flashbacks, while no such aromas come to mind, I can conjure tastes.
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The first question is, “what if we’re wrong?” The second, larger question is, “what if we can’t know?”
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But if one was the picture-perfect-postcard of a vacation the other was the photographic negative from which it was printed.
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First there was the retirement that wasn’t, observed by many, and then there was the retirement that “was”, observed by almost no one. And midway between them was a short-circuited retirement, a retirement that “wasn’t” also observed by almost no one. The end.
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I served a generous portion, grated sharp cheddar on top, and plunged my fork in to discover . . . chunky bean soup. Zero alarm. A fire retardant.
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My experience in returning to Lake Placid that late afternoon encapsulated the rightness of my choice.
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Remember “Eileen” from “You Made Me Love You” ( the Crush prompt)?
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And finally, when did us older folk as individuals become “we” and seem to merit attention as if we were dumb, blind and simple? As in, how are “we” feeling?
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I don’t know what the definition of “crush” is, offhand. Certainly, it’s an intense infatuation, a deep, deep feeling. But I think there’s something more, a notion of unavailability. . . . . But there's unavailability and then there's unavailability.
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The first step for new hires in the group was mastery of a seventy-page manual about alphabetization Seriously.
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I suspect that had I fallen for the Mavis scam they would have done nothing and billed me for brake replacement.
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Perhaps many who engage in dog rescue affirmatively choose to do so. Others, like my ex-wife Laura and me, just stumble into it.
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My partner, Dina’s mother Barbara, was going out with her for support, and Dina needed someone to look after her pup, whom she called “Monkey”. I told her to forget about boarding, especially because Monkey had been a shelter pup, and volunteered to look after him at our house.
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Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman . . ."
And the 'woman' said, "Say, what?"
And God said, "Let the games begin."
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(Old Albany Post Road) is a dirt road and will forever be that way. There is an Old Road Society in town, and members are militant. Old Albany is their prized project.
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This was elementary school in the 1950’s, before President Kennedy advanced the cause of fitness for school children. But Mr. Cave needed no presidential push.
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HER kindergarten teacher had taught the class the wonders of white-bread-and-French's-mustard sandwiches. Blecch.
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I perused my small, kid-targeted weather book (maybe even a Golden Book?) ‘til I cracked its spine.
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The schout whereupon demanded that the defendant "shall be punished as a tumultuous and seditious person . . . "
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[T]he Fosters' marriage was the second for each. Seems that there had been an "exchange" at some point earlier such that two couples had simply, shall we say, reorganized.
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But for me [the moon landing] came with an equal dose of profound sadness.
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. . . it looked to be some form of ritual, the Shunning of the Water
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[T]he slack mainsheet clipped the corner of my eyeglasses . . . neatly somersaulting them off my face. And into the lake.
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I discovered that those key staff members I had interviewed had withheld documents and flat-out lied to me, to my face. People I knew and trusted.
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There is something liberating about a “date” when, from the outset, both know that there can be no future.
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Two department stores. All sorts of other downtown fixtures – jewelers, women’s fashion, men’s stores, Army-Navy, hobby shops, and a Woolworth’s.
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My college path was prologue. My career journey was complete. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Could we have sought out colleges with curricula to make (our childhood dream careers) come true? And what would those majors look like?
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As a recidivist perpetrator of attempted humor, I know full well that “LOL”* is no substitute for a belly laugh.
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Pause and conjure up the image of what we looked like. Clearly charter members of the Dork Platoon.
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Freshman year spring term. As Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities, the best of times and the worst of times. The best because academic diligence took a holiday and I rather enjoyed myself. The worst because, well, academic diligence took a holiday. Another Harvard “Hum” course, this one Hum 75, German culture. All readings…
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Them’s the Brakes. Or not.
Prompted By Car Trouble
/ Stories
The station had a resident mechanic, who proceeded to put the station wagon we were in on a lift. In time the problem was diagnosed. The necessary part(s) had to be delivered from another location and then installed. Sooner or later. Turned out to be later
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What He Said
Prompted By What My Father Told Me
/ Stories
"Do as you might have" . . . But the aunt in question rendered this simply as doozha mighta.
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I’m Five
Prompted By Special Birthdays
/ Stories
Why? 'Cause I got to cross our street, and any other street, by myself.
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Lost and Found. And Lost and Found. And . . . .
Prompted By The Eyes Have It
/ Stories
And then, I realized that a lens had fallen out. Jeez. While I was riding on the back of an open truck traveling at 65 miles an hour.
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Remembrance
Prompted By 9/11 Twenty Years Later
/ Stories
Never intended to address this prompt. Until today, Saturday September 11, 2021.
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A Fair to Remember
Prompted By State or County Fair
/ Stories
The president of the fair was a local fixture, Bligh Dodds . . . and he was straight out of Sinclair Lewis.
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A picture is worth a thousand rounds.
Save the Bones for Henry Jones
Prompted By Naming Pets
/ Stories
My younger son was in nursery school at the time and his best buddy, Dugan, thought her name was “Fleabee”, to the amusement of us all.
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There’s Something Happening Here (?)
Prompted By Recycling
/ Stories
Visit the brand new transfer station, spanking clean. Return home and excitedly relate the news. "You're raving about a dump?" Never mind.
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A Timely Postscript
Prompted By Remembering Radios
/ Stories
Some dates are more memorable than others.
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Radio, Radio
Prompted By Remembering Radios
/ Stories
I particularly liked the weekly feature from StoryCorps, personal stories narrated by one family member to another. Probably no surprise to this crowd.
Read More
Worth a thousand words
Twice-(Thrice-?Umpteenth-?)Told Tales of the Great White North
Prompted By Rewatchable Movies
/ Stories
Let me pose a question: for a movie to qualify as “re”watchable does it first have to be watchable? What about Stupid Movies, the kind that seem to exist solely to celebrate their own inanity?
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Oh, How I Miss Manners
Prompted By Manners
/ Stories
The full description of the CWP program included an interesting reference to one of the takeaways from the course, something called “Trigger Finger Etiquette”. NO, NO, NO, that’s not “manners”.
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Original Inequality
Prompted By Inequality
/ Stories
Barbara to Mom: “why doesn’t Tommy have to do this?”
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'Nuff said.
I Had Hair Once, But I Used It Up
Prompted By Haircuts
/ Stories
"Regular haircut?" "Yup." Made his day.
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Revolution 1 (Flu Bee Doo Wah)
Prompted By One Year of the Pandemic
/ Stories
Vaccines arrive. Like Brylcreem: a little jab'll do ya.
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The Relief Pitcher
Prompted By Advertising Jingles and Slogans
/ Stories
But, of course, the iconic Alka-Seltzer ads featured little Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Bright-eyed and eager he pitched relief to the masses. Known far and wide, yes, but do you know Speedy's backstory?
Read More
Keeping It Reeled?
Prompted By First Memory
/ Stories
I’m sure that among the filmed “memories” are some that I truly recall, but after so many viewings of the home movies I can’t be sure. Is it real or is it Kodachrome II?
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Prompt and Circumstance
Prompted By Reconnecting
/ Stories
(T)he point of these reminiscences isn’t a specific memory, it’s about the conversations that ensue about those memories.
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And so it goes.
Talkin’ ‘Bout Whose Generation?
Prompted By Aunts & Uncles
/ Stories
That was my first encounter with Hadley. I held her on my lap the entire time. Having this sunny, beautiful four-month-old niece was a welcome counterweight to my grief for my mom.
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I Wuz Robbed
Prompted By Aunts & Uncles
/ Stories
So it starts with a headcount. Between them my parents had five siblings. All brothers. Uncle and, perhaps spousal Aunt possibilities abounded . . . . Alas
Read More
Lost and Found
Prompted By Memorabilia
/ Stories
And looking at how the dates fall I realize that it’s September 1979. Charlie was born Thursday September 27, 1979. Charlie and his mom came home from the hospital on Sunday the 30th. The day the picture was taken.
Read More
One Step at a Time
Prompted By Recipes
/ Stories
(Mom) was drawn to challenging recipes. With mixed results. Her sardine pie became the stuff of family legend, firmly anchoring the bottom end of the results scale.
Read More
Bad Moon Rising
Prompted By Superstition
/ Stories
Seems to me that Covid-19 has set the stage for the emergence of new superstitions.
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The (Very) Deep State
Prompted By Fragrant Flashbacks
/ Stories
But getting back to fragrant flashbacks, while no such aromas come to mind, I can conjure tastes.
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For What It’s Worth
Prompted By Pandemic - Pandemonium or Panacea?
/ Stories
The first question is, “what if we’re wrong?” The second, larger question is, “what if we can’t know?”
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This is a Developing Story
Prompted By Vacation or Staycation from Hell
/ Stories
But if one was the picture-perfect-postcard of a vacation the other was the photographic negative from which it was printed.
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The Wurst of Times
Prompted By Retirement
/ Stories
First there was the retirement that wasn’t, observed by many, and then there was the retirement that “was”, observed by almost no one. And midway between them was a short-circuited retirement, a retirement that “wasn’t” also observed by almost no one. The end.
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Hot Hot Hot
Prompted By Super Bowl
/ Stories
I served a generous portion, grated sharp cheddar on top, and plunged my fork in to discover . . . chunky bean soup. Zero alarm. A fire retardant.
Read More
There and Back Again
Prompted By Moving Day
/ Stories
My experience in returning to Lake Placid that late afternoon encapsulated the rightness of my choice.
Read More
Still Nosy After All These Years
Prompted By Tracking People Down
/ Stories
Remember “Eileen” from “You Made Me Love You” ( the Crush prompt)?
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How’s That Again?
Prompted By Ageism
/ Stories
And finally, when did us older folk as individuals become “we” and seem to merit attention as if we were dumb, blind and simple? As in, how are “we” feeling?
Read More
You Made Me Love You . . .
Prompted By The Crush
/ Stories
I don’t know what the definition of “crush” is, offhand. Certainly, it’s an intense infatuation, a deep, deep feeling. But I think there’s something more, a notion of unavailability. . . . . But there's unavailability and then there's unavailability.
Read More
Adventures in Libraryland
Prompted By Libraries
/ Stories
The first step for new hires in the group was mastery of a seventy-page manual about alphabetization Seriously.
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Brake Padding
Prompted By Hacks and Scams
/ Stories
I suspect that had I fallen for the Mavis scam they would have done nothing and billed me for brake replacement.
Read More
Rescue Me
Prompted By Pets
/ Stories
Perhaps many who engage in dog rescue affirmatively choose to do so. Others, like my ex-wife Laura and me, just stumble into it.
Read More
Minding Monkey
Prompted By Nannies and Babysitters
/ Stories
My partner, Dina’s mother Barbara, was going out with her for support, and Dina needed someone to look after her pup, whom she called “Monkey”. I told her to forget about boarding, especially because Monkey had been a shelter pup, and volunteered to look after him at our house.
Read More
In the Beginning a/k/a Original Spin
Prompted By Games People Play
/ Stories
Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman . . ."
And the 'woman' said, "Say, what?"
And God said, "Let the games begin."
Read More
Dirt Road Rage
Prompted By Road Rage
/ Stories
(Old Albany Post Road) is a dirt road and will forever be that way. There is an Old Road Society in town, and members are militant. Old Albany is their prized project.
Read More
Mr. Cave
Prompted By An Unforgettable Person
/ Stories
This was elementary school in the 1950’s, before President Kennedy advanced the cause of fitness for school children. But Mr. Cave needed no presidential push.
Read More
Generations
Prompted By Kindergarten
/ Stories
HER kindergarten teacher had taught the class the wonders of white-bread-and-French's-mustard sandwiches. Blecch.
Read More
Geek of Geeks
Prompted By Weather
/ Stories
I perused my small, kid-targeted weather book (maybe even a Golden Book?) ‘til I cracked its spine.
Read More
A Demon Seed?
Prompted By Genealogy
/ Stories
The schout whereupon demanded that the defendant "shall be punished as a tumultuous and seditious person . . . "
Read More
Won’t You Stay My Neighbor?
Prompted By Neighbors
/ Stories
[T]he Fosters' marriage was the second for each. Seems that there had been an "exchange" at some point earlier such that two couples had simply, shall we say, reorganized.
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She'd wed seven crashin' bores before
Vichnaya Pamyat*
Prompted By Moon Landing
/ Stories
But for me [the moon landing] came with an equal dose of profound sadness.
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Beach Readers
Prompted By Beach Reads
/ Stories
. . . it looked to be some form of ritual, the Shunning of the Water
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O Say Can You See?
Prompted By Fireworks
/ Stories
[T]he slack mainsheet clipped the corner of my eyeglasses . . . neatly somersaulting them off my face. And into the lake.
Read More
Untruths and Consequences
Prompted By Honesty
/ Stories
I discovered that those key staff members I had interviewed had withheld documents and flat-out lied to me, to my face. People I knew and trusted.
Read More
The First Shall be Last
Prompted By First Dates
/ Stories
There is something liberating about a “date” when, from the outset, both know that there can be no future.
Read More
Downtown, Everything’s Waiting for You*
Prompted By Shopping Local
/ Stories
Two department stores. All sorts of other downtown fixtures – jewelers, women’s fashion, men’s stores, Army-Navy, hobby shops, and a Woolworth’s.
Read More
Time and Time Again
Prompted By College Majors as Career Gaugers
/ Stories
My college path was prologue. My career journey was complete. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Could we have sought out colleges with curricula to make (our childhood dream careers) come true? And what would those majors look like?
Read More
(A)Social Media?
Prompted By Social Media Friendships
/ Stories
As a recidivist perpetrator of attempted humor, I know full well that “LOL”* is no substitute for a belly laugh.
Read More
Not-So-Fast Times at West Junior High
Prompted By PE Pleasures and Perils
/ Stories
Pause and conjure up the image of what we looked like. Clearly charter members of the Dork Platoon.
Read More
Yin and Yang
Prompted By Exams
/ Stories
Freshman year spring term. As Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities, the best of times and the worst of times. The best because academic diligence took a holiday and I rather enjoyed myself. The worst because, well, academic diligence took a holiday. Another Harvard “Hum” course, this one Hum 75, German culture. All readings…
Read More