Grandma’s Kuchen

 

 

            My grand experiment arose from a search for the perfect apple. On a crisp autumn day before Covid struck, quite by chance during a pumpkin farm visit, I bit into a Cortland apple.

            Mmmmm. Tart, sweet, juicy, and crunchy. Perfect.

Fractal Fest - or, Chicago 2022 Reunion of Loyola Rome Center 1970-71

Carol LaVesser Salinger and me -
friends since age 8, and Rome roommates

This is the picture I sent home a week into living in the dorm in 1970. I had wrapped myself in pillows and added a big towel, trying to look like I'd already had too much pasta and vino. I captioned the photo "I've changed." Those Italian ladies in the cafeteria could really cook!

 

Last week, when I joined a reunion of Loyola University’s Rome Center, I became part of a living human example of an abstract mathematical construct. 

New Piano, Old Questions - How do we Learn? How do we Remember?

How do we learn? How do we remember? And what has that got to do with “Pipeline,” the Chantays hit from 1962? My head has been full of such wonderings since I bought a piano this spring, and started playing again after decades away from the instrument.

"Poldark" Bingo

 

My dear niece Ashley suggested I try “Poldark” on Amazon Prime and here I am, well into season three, caught like a wiggling fish in a net. I may turn up my nose at bodice buster novels and soap operas, but PBS magic plus the beautifulness of actors Aiden Turner and Elinor Tomlinson have me in their grip. Sometimes I even find myself saying “t’is” and “t’was,” for heaven’s sake.

Gifts from the Waters (Or How I Learned to do Sea Glass Crafts in Spite of Myself)

Sometimes, when life throws you trash, you can turn it into treasure.

Creating with words or boxes

Q. When is it especially fun to write a blog?    

 A. When you get email like this one I received last week:

Hügelkultur and our raised vegetable garden bed

I’m not sure what started my husband’s venture into raised-bed gardening and Hügelkultur, but I’m going to blame YouTube and our neighbors Josiah and Iman.

Music brings us all together

Little did I realize, when I accepted a seemingly-simple Facebook challenge, that I’d be prompting an informal vote on my favorite music.

Share your COVID BIG history!!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a unique way we can be helpful: your state's historical society could be seeking your thoughts. Mine is.

Making the most of lines and circles

The young have much to teach the old. My three-and-a-half-year-old grandson, Max, has proved that. 

Jayber Crow: a book to lift you up

Need a book that will inspire you? Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry is made for COVID-19 days. In fact, it's a book for all days, for those who seek to remain human. I’ve never read a novel like this one. If you were to ask me what it’s about, I’d have to pause.

Bill Bryson's Thunderbolt: It's to LAUGH!

If humor is what you’re pining for, I’ve got the remedy. I have never laughed so hard and so often reading a book as when I read The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. His memories of growing up in the Midwest during the 1950s are gutsy and irreverent, true to life but often exaggerated for comic effect. The memoir is a reminder that things really, really were REALLY different back then.

Shuffle

Before my mother became "Mum," she was Audrey, the country cousin on a farm in St. Michael's outside Kewaskum. Shirley was her city cousin in Milwaukee. They resembled each other, petite girls bubbling with laughter. Shirley and Audrey had no sisters and over their years of visits, they became more than sisters, the best of pals. They made their fun outdoors, exploring the barn, ice skating on the frozen river near the farm, or roller skating on sidewalks in Milwaukee. 

Josie - a true friend

What makes a good friend? I’ve been thinking about that since I lost my pal Josie Bochek.

We buried her on December 1. In the days since then, I’ve come up with this true-friend list, all based on Josie:

Why go to your 50th high school class reunion?

There's an old joke that goes something like this: You go to your 10th high school class reunion to see who's looking good, to your 30th to see who's doing well, and to your 50th to see who's still alive.

The Ted, Audrey and George Grenier Challenge

It’s been forty years since my eighteen-year-old brother David had the awful duty of informing me that our parents and brother had been killed in a car accident.

Shoreland Plantings: Part of Healthy Lakes Best Practices

Have you ever loved a lake? I've never met a lake I didn't love. My husband and I are lucky enough to own a trailer on Little Green Lake in Markesan, Wisconsin. It's our happy place.

I recently wrote the following piece for our Little Green Lake newsletter. While the specifics are for our lake, county, and state, the general idea of working for lake health could translate to any place on earth. 

If you love a lake, here's information about best practices for healthy lakes . . . . 

Exploring life's greatest mystery through real love stories: Katie Kolberg Memmel's new book

Ever wonder what makes a marriage work? Mike and I just celebrated our 46^th wedding anniversary, and I still wonder. People often act as if they understand it all, but I think love is the greatest mystery of life.

Katie Kolberg Memmel, a former writing student of mine, recently published a book called From This Day Forward. I had particular interest in her book because it was comprised of stories gleaned from interviews, like my own recent book, Young Voices from Wild Milwaukee. I know how hard it is to go from interview to book form.

I was curious, so I asked her about the book:

Don't give your grandchild a wrapped gift

Do you think your grandchild has enough toys, games, and trinkets? 

Me too.

Eleanor Roosevelt's letter to my mother

I was going through family documents recently and came upon something that I forgot was there: a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to my mother, dated February 18, 1961. It looks the way documents used to look when we all used manual typewriters - the individual letters of the alphabet display varying degrees of thickness. The note is signed in Mrs. Roosevelt's rather elegant hand with real ink (using a fountain pen, for sure). I'm touched by the humility in her wording "with renewed regrets and the hope that you will understand my position" regarding the fact that the former First Lady was not going to send a gift for my mother's church festival.