Sixty years ago today, my parents were married in Concord, N.H. The ceremony was held on Memorial Day — back when that solemn holiday was celebrated on May 30 and not bounced around the fourth Monday in May to create a three-day weekend. My father was dressed in Navy blues; he met my mother while his destroyer, the U.S.S. Norris was docked at the Boston shipyard for repairs. She was a nursing student at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. They met on a blind date.
My mother wore a traditional white wedding gown with a waist-length veil anchored by a lace headband. In a wedding photo...
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As spring commenced and the azaleas blossomed, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I remarked on how the blooms attracted a bounty of bumblebees. They hovered around the blooms and then flew upward and buzzed about the balconies that jut out from our upstairs bedrooms. We both noticed a bit of sawdust on the deck below. She remarked that she had heard bees can bore holes in wood. I didn’t notice any damage so thought little about it, figuring the bees were having a bit of fun in places that did no harm.
Then one morning I heard a loud knocking at the side of the house. It stopped when I opened...
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TAYLOR — It’s quiet on a weekday morning in downtown Taylor. I finished my research in the library an hour earlier than expected, so I’m walking around, killing time before my lunch appointment at the Taylor Cafe. The sky is overcast with faint rumblings of thunder and a few fat raindrops. A welcomed storm came through the night before, awakening me in my friend’s guest bedroom. All rainstorms are invited guests in Central Texas, large or small.
I peruse an antique/used bookstore to kill time. An old fellow is rocked back in an old chair on the sidewalk, surrounded by various merchandise....
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I was weed-whacking in the back of our yard the other day when I noticed a familiar foe had reappeared amongst the azaleas and the pine straw, a three-leafed plant that has been the bane of my outdoor life since I was barely able to walk. Despite my best efforts last year to kill the crop, poison ivy had returned to the back boundary of our yard.
We avoid using pesticides, herbicides, etc. as much as we can. We buy organic vegetables, hoping the grocery stores are telling the truth. We don’t spray our own vegetable plants or flowers willy-nilly with chemicals, though sometimes we are forced...
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NPR recently ran a piece about how Hollywood is converting to all-digital and will no longer distribute new movies in 35-millimeter film form. That means the end of the line for most old-time movie projectionists — folks like Andy Holyoke, who was the projectionist for the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs Ohio for 35 years. The theater will close for several months to convert to digital, as most movie houses have already done. Like slide-rule manufacturers, typewriter salesmen, sign painters (my dad’s craft) and switchboard operators, the movie projectionist is going the way of the dodo...
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