Suprise Me

I moved to Chicago in 1978 to take a sales position with a company willing to hire me. My husband stayed in Boston and we commuted for 16 months, seeing each other every second or third weekend. The photo is me, “dressed for success” in August of 1978. I have no photos of “AL”. My… Read More

I was starstruck from a very young age, and I think it was the combination of a) seeing the stars at their most glamorous, nervous and exposed; and b) experiencing vicariously the thrill of worldwide recognition that made the Oscars so irresistible. Read More

Alright, fast forward to the present: I was delighted that Mother Nature took center stage with a spectacular display of natural fireworks on the 4th! It was a relief for me, the wildlife and our already overly polluted air to take a break from another display of “we’re the greatest.” Read More

When I was little, Susan and the Rain was one of my favorite books. Of course it was partly because my name is Susan, but also because I hated the rain. Here’s how it starts: Susan Amantha Cottonwood   was a little girl      who was always good –         when the sun… Read More

Mom had her own beauty shop in the front of the house. Since she was her own boss she could check on us frequently between customers when we were little. At one point I think she thought she would experiment with getting someone in to watch us a bit more closely. That’s how we came… Read More

Before I start my own story, I have to explain how this prompt, College Majors as Career Gaugers, came about. I subscribe to a listserv of members of the class preceding mine at my alma mater, which actively discusses myriad topics on a daily basis. A few months ago, somebody posed the question: did your… Read More

About fitting in after moving to the US during high school. Read More

The last time I saw Kelly, he’d been dead for over a year. In yet another dream, he was sitting next to me on a bus.  “You have to let me go,” he said. When I met him, in 1966, Kelly was a junior in high school. He was outrageous, audacious, charismatic, and sexy as… Read More

In the summer of 1970 the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society had the wonderful opportunity to sing two concerts at Tanglewood, with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. It was an exciting time. We spent the week before the concerts living at Tanglewood, with many rehearsals but also quite a bit of free time.… Read More

As a city kid in Philadelphia there was nothing like going "down the shore." Read More