Columns

I’m usually a happy early riser. If I am not drinking my first cuppa joe by 6 a.m. I feel as though the day has started without me. But this morning was an exception. It was Francheska’s day to drive, and she would be here by 11 a.m. We were going...well, we were...

As a child, I couldn’t understand why grownups loved coffee. Mom smiled when she measured Eight O’Clock beans into the machine at our local A&P. The grounds smelled wonderful when she perked them in her electric pot. Yet, Dad’s coffee tasted awful when he gave me...

Warm summer days were great for going fishing when I was nine. I lived in a small town where the local funeral home had an estate with a meandering little creek that I like to fish in. One spot that I favored was a footbridge that spanned the creek about eight feet...

“I’m gathering proof of my family lineage to apply to the Daughters of the American Revolution,” my friend Connie said a year ago. I wasn’t surprised. Throughout our long, intermittent friendship, I’ve observed her zeal for family history and community service. What...

“Here’s a pair of wings because you were listening and following along,” so said the flight attendant. I was handed plastic wings with a safety pin on the back. Generally, they were meant to be neat giveaways to children who were flying, but that day, the fact that...

Transplanted from eastern Kentucky to Detroit’s Yacama Street the summer of 1954, I scented something like Mom’s canned tomatoes. “What’s that smell coming from the neighbor’s house?” I asked Mom. “Why, that’s Italian spaghetti sauce.” “Does it taste like your stewed...

As a historian and genealogist, one of the first things you learn is to be very wary of family histories. Police use the slogan “Trust but verify,” which is a good motto to apply to family history stories. Trust the story but before retelling the story search for...

Dave the plumber arrived at 11:30 a.m. Monday morning and followed my husband to the basement posthaste. The sounds of drilling and flowing water through pipes from below soon provoked a smile. After the smelly, inconvenient emergency of leaky sewage pipes, the repair...

“We forgot our ‘forever looking lists’ didn’t we,” I mumbled to my fellow Gadabouts. “I threw mine away, chirped Giselle. “It was getting too long.” “I pretty much completed mine,” said Francheska. “Well I left mine at home, and its probably a good thing, since I...

Anticipating my Friday lunch date with Elaine, I gathered our laundry a day earlier than my usual routine. I reserved Saturday for extracting honey at my place with a fellow beekeeper. My bees gave up the ghost last winter and left thirteen frames of honey. Praise...