Hello, Mom?
Warning: For those readers who may be allergic to “maudlin,” read no further.
Well, here we are approaching the end of our first month of 2016, and as far as I’m concerned this “new” year hasn’t shown me much to feel optimistic about the rest of the year. Perhaps that will change as the weeks go on.
I am so ticked off, really angry right now. What happened this year to Thanksgiving, one of our most traditional, non-religious, rooted-in-history holidays, and one I have very much looked forward to every year since I was a child?
Have you purchased your supply of cucurbita pepo yet?
As most Record readers know, we have a rabbit problem on the South End, thanks to the one-time popular Barnyard Scramble held yearly during the Island County Fair.
I think it’s safe to say that the summer of 2015 will live in our memories for a very long time. For awhile now, I’ve been thinking of it as “the summer of too much.”
I attended two granddaughters’ high school graduation earlier this month, and among the many things I observed about the attire of young women today was what the majority of them were wearing on their feet.
Wedgies, very tall wedgies in most cases. I was surprised, to say the least. Wedgies have to be one of the world’s most dangerous shoe styles, with high stacked heels and a narrow base. I know this because I was teetering around on them a few decades ago. Back then, we referred to them as our “ankle breakers.” As I watched the graduating girls totter up the stairs onto the stage and teeter back down after receiving their diplomas, I thought about how many things in the world of fashion are “hot,” then fade only to come back in some form decades later. It occurred to me that the same thing happens in the food world.
We’ve all heard it so many times, that old adage “How time flies when you’re having fun,” but I’ve never felt it so strongly as I do at this moment. Today, as I’m writing this, it is May 15, 2015, and when I sat down at my computer, wondering which of several possibilities I’d use for a column, it suddenly hit me.
It was in May, 1989 that my first column appeared in the South Whidbey Record. 1989! I’m in shock as I realize that was 26 years ago, and there is no way I ever thought that would happen.
As I’m writing this column, it’s early February with everything but Groundhog Day still ahead of us, and that unimaginable Feb. 1 day now only a bad memory (Superbowl Sunday). But, it’s obvious that even though it’s the shortest month of the year, February is also the one most packed with “special” days and events.
Well, thus far we’ve made it past the first day of winter, through Christmas, and are now heading toward that final countdown on New Year’s Eve. As usual, I’m unable to understand where it all went so fast, but ‘twas ever thus.
The Thanksgiving feast is always wonderful; fine food, good friends, beloved family and new memories to add to the ever-growing store of treasured times. But then, when all is quiet and I’m alone in the kitchen, I open the fridge and what I consider one of the best aspects of Thanksgiving is there, in abundance.
It’s called “leftovers,” and I can’t wait to begin dealing with the remains of the feast.
In the wee small hours of the morning of Jan. 12, 1940, Dad woke both me and my older brother from sound sleep and told us to come with him to see what he said was a late Christmas present that had just arrived.
Imagine our disappointment when we followed him into their bedroom and saw a tiny, pink, wiggling, squeaking baby in our mother’s arms; not the bicycle Sonny wanted nor the Sonja Henie skating doll I’d wanted. A baby, and not a very cute one at that point, either.
