New Year 2015

I was unable to determine what became of my Mother's childhood "long walk" friend posted previously. However, she mentioned another childhood friend that was last seen at her wedding 57 years ago. After a couple hours of "pigheaded" sessions with Google, I found the woman's daughter-in-law and an email address! My mom spoke to the daughter-in-law and will talk to her friend soon. I guess batting 50-50 isn't too bad.

The year 2015 will include some big changes for me. The office was put up for sale and the first two months of 2015 will be busy with sorting through years of stuff and moving.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't afford to keep the building.

Two Little Girls Tired of Bread...

Far Side of Fifty spotted an old newspaper article in my mother's old photo display. The story tells of one of my mother's earliest childhood memories. The article is dated March 3, 1941.

Two Little Girls Tired of Bread After Five-Hour Walk With Loaf

There was no place like home for two little girls in Roxbury [a Boston, Massachusetts suburb] last night.

Walking may be enjoyable and bread may be good to eat, but 5-year-old Evelyn Belyea of 8 Kensington st., and her little pal, Lois Bush [my mother], 3, who lives next door, have learned the sad lesson that there can be too much of two good things.

When her mother sent her for a loaf of bread at 11:30 a.m., yesterday, Evelyn took her fox terrier, "Trixie" and called for Lois. After buying the bread, the youngsters decided that a walk would be "just the thing."

Their little legs carried the kiddies more than two miles, to Forest Hills, before protesting. The the two tired girls started the dreary trek homeward. Long before patrolman Daniel J. Crowe of the Jamaica Plain station sighted them at Egleston sq., about 4:30 p.m., and recognized them as "the missing kids," they had tired of their day-long diet of bread and felt the "prodigal's" proverbial yearning for fatted calf.

I wonder what's become of my mother's friend?

Christmas is Coming

Barely finished with Thanksgiving, I find myself getting Christmas Cards and even boxes in the mail. Before I moved on from Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a photo of my Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary. I found one at my parent's house. In the guest bedroom, my mom keeps a display of family photos that I have found in a variety of old boxes in the attic and other places.

My Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary are in the center. James Joseph Dunn Jr. was a Master Sargent in the Army and was stationed in Germany immediately after WWII. He looks so impossibly young in this photo. Of course, I never saw him as a "young man"!

In the week that follows Thanksgiving, I place grave blankets on my Grandparent's grave - It is my way of telling them I am thankful for all the love and blessings they gave me while they were "with us." They have not been forgotten - and with the onset of their favorite time of the year, They are specially remembered.

My mother's father loved Fruitcake from Collin Street Bakery of Texas - and a can of it was ordered for the family to share on Christmas Day.

My dad's mom loved to sign her gifts "From Santa" and spent the entire year before Christmas looking (and listening) for the perfect gift idea. She always found something that made her grandchild jump up and down in glee.

The recent loss of my dad's father is becoming less recent - but the later years on the gravestone remind me that my dad's father's last Christmas with us was no different - my older brother and I shared a few hours with him in his comfortable bedroom on Christmas Day. As confused as he was with many things, he knew it was Christmas - and that "Kid" (as he called his wife) was greatly missed...and especially so on that day.

And now, I will start writing and send my own Christmas Cards.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This Thanksgiving, I went down to the seashore with my parents. I always enjoy the "winter beach" and the lack of crowds during the off-season. We left just before a Nor'easter storm left 4 or 5 inches of snow in my neighborhood and I only saw only some cold wet rain as the snow was gone by the time I returned home.

I did some overdue maintenance work on a garden shed, Superstorm Sandy had blown off some roof shingles and I set about cleaning out the shed and mending the roof. After getting the shed in order, I went down to the beach to listen to the surf. I took a half dozen photos, and I like how the seagull in the foreground might look like he made some footprints.

About a month ago, I was rooting through some old boxes with stuff my Grandfather left behind, and in with the "debris" of a long life (i.e., "trash") I found a family heirloom.

A silver plated carving set. I was immediately transported back 40-45 years in time to a Thanksgiving Dinner at my grandparents, parents, brothers, and my Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary, and their son Paddy. My grandmother had spent the day setting the big table in her dinning room, and now we all sat down to give thanks and to eat a feast fit for kings. My Uncle Jim, in his booming voice filled with laughter, saying, "Well, Harry! Bring on the bird!!"

My grandfather would then bring the huge (usually a 25 pound plus) turkey from the kitchen through the swinging door to the end of the long table. He would then make a few swipes of the carving knife on the sharpener (it really didn't need it, as my grandfather had fully sharpened it an hour or two beforehand) and set about carving white meat for those that wanted white meat and dark meat for those that wanted dark meat, and always gave me and my younger brother a drumstick apiece too.

This Thanksgiving, my parents and I ate a much smaller turkey carved with the carving set my great-grandfather first used in the 1920's. You might notice someone got a drumstick.

We talked about the many delicious meals we shared with my Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary and Paddy, and how much we always enjoyed being with them. It was hard to believe it has been over 30 years now since we last ate with him.

And as fate would have it, hungry for something warm after a cold day spent outside, we ran short of mashed potatoes, which reminded us of the time my grandmother spent hours peeling and boiling potatoes and mashed them by hand only to find the heaping bowl full only went 2/3ds of the way around the table! She was visibly mortified - and no amount of telling her, "there was more than ample food to make up for it," would make her less embarrassed. Through the hub-bub, my cousin Paddy* pipes up, "Boy these mashed potatoes sure are good!" It turns out that he had innocently taken half the bowl, so Aunt Mary rescued some of them and we all had some mashed potatoes after all!

*Cousin Paddy, James J. Dunn the III had Down's Syndrome and was a big, gruff, but wonderfully big-hearted soul. He spent many hours setting up his huge HO train set and tracks so that his cousins (my brothers and I) would be able to play with them when we came to visit him.