Be kind, for everyone you know is fighting a hard battle.
~Ian MacLaren
Melissa Ann Goodwin
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Poem Accepted by THE LITERARY BOHEMIAN
I'm excited to say that one of my poems, Ocean Point, was accepted for publication by The Literary Bohemian and will appear in their September issue. The poem is one of several that came out of our year of travel in the RV during 2012.
Speaking of RV travel, my husband Dick aka RVPainter and I are currently working on our book for new RVers. It's called RVPainter and DW Present the Newbie's Guide to RVing. It's full of helpful information and advice and lots of humor and funny stories. We hope to have it out in the fall. It's a how-to book, not a memoir of our trip, but we will be sharing some of best (and worst) stories.
You can check the Literary Bohemian HERE.
Speaking of RV travel, my husband Dick aka RVPainter and I are currently working on our book for new RVers. It's called RVPainter and DW Present the Newbie's Guide to RVing. It's full of helpful information and advice and lots of humor and funny stories. We hope to have it out in the fall. It's a how-to book, not a memoir of our trip, but we will be sharing some of best (and worst) stories.
You can check the Literary Bohemian HERE.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
My Cuttyhunk by My Father, Robert G. Goodwin
In honor of Father's Day, the following post is a short memoir piece that appeared in the Martha's Vineyard Gazette. It was a collaboration between my dad and me - he wrote the story and I edited it. We did this about a year after he had a stroke in December of 2004.
I submitted the piece to the Gazette, and heard nothing from them for more than a year. One day I got a phone call from the editor, who said, "I love this piece and I've been hanging onto it until I had space for it. I'd like to run it in the July issue." Dad was so excited - our writing collaborations were one of the things that kept his mind active and his spirits up once he was living in the nursing home.
In the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day) the Alert made a round trip every day. The rest of the year it made only two trips a week (Tuesday and Friday). We would plan to go out on Tuesday and hope that we would have completed our work by Friday. On more than one occasion, however, due to the weather or size of the job, we would have to lay over until the next trip. I always brought a small portable Monroe calculator along, and did the day’s computations so that I would have a complete traverse done by the time we left. We usually went over in the off-season, to make sure we would have accommodations at the Poplars, one of two boarding houses on the island. This way, we did not meet many of the summer residents. However, word word passed around that we were doing survey work, and eventually people sent word to us to contact them. In this way, we began to get work from the summer and year-round inhabitants.
To get around the island, we rented a beat-up old jeep with few floorboards for $5 a day from an old-timer named Alan Potter. On the very first visit, while we were waiting to leave on the Alert, I backed the jeep down a slope near the dock and almost wound up in the drink, much to the enjoyment of our crew. Fortunately one of the residents was handy with his jeep and pulled me back up. Was I embarrassed!
Speaking of jeeps, some residents brought their vehicles over from New Bedford by boat. Although there are not many paved roads to drive on, the vehicles were needed to carry supplies to the two boarding houses, the general store, and groceries and other necessities to the permanent and summer residents’ dwellings. Over the years, the vehicles were subject to the weather of coastal New England and gradually deteriorated to the condition such as found in Mr. Potter’s jeep. They neglected to register their vehicles on a yearly basis, and so if word leaked out that the man from the Registry of Motor Vehicles was on his way out, they all drove their cars to a remote part of the island they called “the dump,” where they pretty much “hid them in plain sight.” Thus they averted another year of registration fees. No fools, these islanders.
The Poplars, where we stayed on our visits, was one of two boarding houses catering mainly to sport fishermen and short-term visitors. It consisted, in the 1960’s, of the main building, which had four bedrooms for guests, the main dining room, a large kitchen, and a living room where guests could watch television in the evening. There was a one story annex that contained 3 bedrooms and 3 small cottages that slept two or three guests. Each cottage had a fireplace that kept the place warm on cool fall nights. The house had a glassed-in porch that was unusual in that the floor sloped away from the house and had scuppers to let the water run out, just like on a ship.
The Poplars was run by Lucille Allen, who provided us with sumptuous meals that included bass, lobster, steak, and chops. If our work took us to a far side of the island, she packed us a great lunch to save time in traveling back and forth. Lucille traveled around the world with her father, who was the captain of a tall ship. Her husband, Clarence, was a character. He can be characterized by the following conversation regarding a brass compass that was embedded in concrete at the front of the main house:
Clarence: Yessir, the front of this house is runnin’ north and south.
Me: Well then, that means the sides of the house are runnin’ east and west, right?
Clarence: “Pert neah!”
Some time between our visits, Lucille decided to retire, and the property was sold to Mildred and Ken Fullerton. They continued to run it as a boarding house. At one point, they had difficulty paying the taxes and were in jeopardy of losing the place. Fortunately, I was able to subdivide it into two lots, of which they sold one, allowing them to pay off the taxes due. They were very appreciative.
The Poplars had one of the two telephones on the island. It was one of those phones where one cranked a handle on the side of the base in order to get the operator, who was based over on the mainland. The other phone was more public and was a pay phone at the Broadway, at the corner of the walkway that goes past the Poplars on its way down to the public dock.
One day, while we were in the process of the East End survey, we were hit with a storm of hurricane proportions. In the evening, we were informed that a Coast Guard vessel had gotten hung up on the Sou au Pigs Reef not too far off the south of the island, and was breaking up. Everyone rushed out to see if any flotsam and jetsam were washing up on the causeway to Canapitsit (the channel running between Cuttyhunk and Nashawena). We joined in the search and rushed down to the barges on the causeway to see if we could see or find anything. The sea was very rough, but we didn’t find anything except some pieces of splintered wood from the hull of the ship.
A few nights later, George Clark and I took advantage of a clear moonlit night to try a little fishing. We drove the jeep down to the causeway and kept the headlights on. George went out on the barges and cast his line. My line got fouled up and I was still untangling it when George hauled in a 38 pound striper. I could have kicked myself, but I was happy for George, because he was a very good fisherman.
In 1967, Cornelius Wood wanted to sell off about 350 acres on the west end, with a provision that it be kept open to the public and a stipulation that those who used it take back out everything they brought in. The parcel contains a body of water called “West End Pond,” containing approximately 50 acres. It is not fresh water, as it is fed by sea r through a small opening on Buzzard’s Bay. The water there is brackish and not good for fishing, though the opening is a good breeding ground for mussels, and someone may have improved it since then.
There once was a true light house with a tender’s house located nearby, but that was replaced with a smaller structure operated by batteries during the war. There is also a small island in the pond on which the South Dartmouth Historical Society erected a stone monument of about 30 feet in height dedicated to Bartholomew Gosnold. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s explorers who discovered and named the Elizabeth Island chain.
Our survey of the West End involved a traverse using the mean high water marks and tying the whole together by connecting it to the end of the lines across the center of the island which we had set up in 1965. My crew consisted of George Clark and Paul Duggan. As we proceeded along the coast line from high water mark to high water mark, turning our angles and measuring distances, George would be the lead man giving the foresight. One day, as Paul and I approached the area of the Gosnold Monument, we heard some loud singing. When we arrived, there was George, swimming in the pond. Without further adieu, Paul and I undressed and joined him! The water was warm and pleasant, although the bottom was a little muddy. However, it was refreshing, and afterward we continued our work with renewed spirits.
I left Dad’s firm in June 1968, six months after my mother died. For the next five years, I worked for a general contractor, but kept my surveyor’s registration alive by accepting private surveys. Then in 1970, Charles Anderson, Engineer for the Massachusetts Land Court, asked Mr. Wood if I could conduct a special survey at Cuttyhunk for the Land Court. The intent was to wrap up all the surveys done there by me, to tie on to any bounds which may have been set by previous surveyors, and to draw a plan showing all the connections. All this was to be done at Mr. Wood’s expense. He graciously agreed, so I went there once again for what I called, “Operation Boundhound.” I took one man with me, and stayed once more at the Poplars, which was now called The Allen House. I have in my files a plan of this survey, which shows connections to every bound of record on Cuttyhunk. Mr. Anderson of the Mass. Land Court was greatly pleased.
My final work regarding Cuttyhunk was in the form of a planning and zoning map, which I drew in 1973 at the request of the Selectmen - Alan Wilder, Alphons P. Tilton, and Bruce Borjas. This plan, in reduced scale, was used as the cover for the Town’s Annual Report for 1972.
There is one final plan that I drew for a member of the Wood family. Ariel Wood Panzecchi, Cornelius Wood’s daughter who inherited Winter House, wanted to donate some land to the Cuttyhunk Historical Society. I drew a plan of a parcel of land at the corner of Broadway and Road to the Hill, next to the Town Hall. A small museum has since been built on this parcel, which I have yet to see. I sent the curator, Mrs. Troidell, a number of pen and ink sketches of various sites drawn by George Clark to sell to the general public for the benefit of the museum only.
Cuttyhunk remains a special place in my memory. All in all, with a good night’s sleep in the salty sea air and a full English breakfast every morning, I couldn’t help but feel refreshed for a good day’s work in an environment far removed from my usual daily routine. I consider myself blessed and shall always remember my good fortune to meet the people on Cuttyhunk, and to become familiar, if only for a brief time, with life on an island.
I submitted the piece to the Gazette, and heard nothing from them for more than a year. One day I got a phone call from the editor, who said, "I love this piece and I've been hanging onto it until I had space for it. I'd like to run it in the July issue." Dad was so excited - our writing collaborations were one of the things that kept his mind active and his spirits up once he was living in the nursing home.
MY CUTTYHUNK by Robert G. Goodwin
Published in the Martha's Vineyard Gazette in July 2006
I had
never heard the word “Cuttyhunk,” much less of an island by that name, until
one day in 1965, when Cornelius Wood Sr., of Andover, Massachusetts, called my
father’s office. He wanted to engage a crew to conduct a survey of a portion of
his land on Cuttyhunk Island, in order to parcel off a lot that he was in the
process of selling.
Dad gave me the assignment. I began learning about Cuttyhunk, and became quite excited at the prospect of doing work in an environment outside of our usual sphere in Essex County. I was also excited about being offered the challenge of taking on a project that not everyone had a chance to undertake in a place that not everyone had a chance to visit.
My first step was to visit Mr. Wood’s office, which was located in the building at the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets, Andover. At the time, that building also housed the Andover Consumer’s Cooperative supermarket and Hartigan Pharmacy, and is now occupied mainly by CVS pharmacy.
A Mr. Dalrymple ran the office. He had worked originally for Mr. Wood’s father, William M. Wood, founder of the American Woolen Company. Mr. Wood built the mill and offices in Shawsheen Village, along with the brick homes that were intended to be a model community for his mill executives. Mr. Dalrymple’s appearance was a bit off-putting, as he had a rather bulbous wart on his nose. I soon was able to overlook that when I realized that he had voluminous records of the Wood family in his keeping, and knew more about William Wood’s properties than anyone.
At the time, Cornelius Wood had large land holdings in both Andover and Cuttyhunk Island, of which he owned about 90% of the land area. In the post World War I years, William Wood bought land on Cuttyhunk for the purpose of accommodating a group of wealthy industrialists and businessmen from Boston and New York as a club for sport fishing. Over the years, he gradually increased his ownership of the island by buying out several of the indigenous land owners.
Mr. Dalrymple supplied me with what Cuttyhunk material he had, though it was very sparse. Not much surveying had been done, and apparently William Wood destroyed all his papers before he committed suicide. In addition to owning nearly the entire island, William Wood also built a mansion at the top of a long knoll, which he called, “Winter House,” because he installed a large furnace to heat it in the event he wanted to spend some time there in the winter. The house is very large, with a living room that runs the entire length of the house, and a wrap-around porch from which there is a 180 degree view of the village and harbor below, the island of Nashowena to the east, and Martha’s Vineyard to the south.
William Wood also purchased a ferry boat to serve the island from New Bedford. He named the boat “Alert,” and used it to carry passengers, groceries and building supplies to the island. This is the boat that my crew and I used to make our first trips over to the island. It takes about an hour for the trip of 15 miles.
Dad gave me the assignment. I began learning about Cuttyhunk, and became quite excited at the prospect of doing work in an environment outside of our usual sphere in Essex County. I was also excited about being offered the challenge of taking on a project that not everyone had a chance to undertake in a place that not everyone had a chance to visit.
My first step was to visit Mr. Wood’s office, which was located in the building at the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets, Andover. At the time, that building also housed the Andover Consumer’s Cooperative supermarket and Hartigan Pharmacy, and is now occupied mainly by CVS pharmacy.
A Mr. Dalrymple ran the office. He had worked originally for Mr. Wood’s father, William M. Wood, founder of the American Woolen Company. Mr. Wood built the mill and offices in Shawsheen Village, along with the brick homes that were intended to be a model community for his mill executives. Mr. Dalrymple’s appearance was a bit off-putting, as he had a rather bulbous wart on his nose. I soon was able to overlook that when I realized that he had voluminous records of the Wood family in his keeping, and knew more about William Wood’s properties than anyone.
At the time, Cornelius Wood had large land holdings in both Andover and Cuttyhunk Island, of which he owned about 90% of the land area. In the post World War I years, William Wood bought land on Cuttyhunk for the purpose of accommodating a group of wealthy industrialists and businessmen from Boston and New York as a club for sport fishing. Over the years, he gradually increased his ownership of the island by buying out several of the indigenous land owners.
Mr. Dalrymple supplied me with what Cuttyhunk material he had, though it was very sparse. Not much surveying had been done, and apparently William Wood destroyed all his papers before he committed suicide. In addition to owning nearly the entire island, William Wood also built a mansion at the top of a long knoll, which he called, “Winter House,” because he installed a large furnace to heat it in the event he wanted to spend some time there in the winter. The house is very large, with a living room that runs the entire length of the house, and a wrap-around porch from which there is a 180 degree view of the village and harbor below, the island of Nashowena to the east, and Martha’s Vineyard to the south.
 |
| Winter House |
William Wood also purchased a ferry boat to serve the island from New Bedford. He named the boat “Alert,” and used it to carry passengers, groceries and building supplies to the island. This is the boat that my crew and I used to make our first trips over to the island. It takes about an hour for the trip of 15 miles.
 |
| The Alert |
Later on, we found it advantageous to hire Norm Gingras and his sea plane to
take us out in about 10 minutes, thereby allowing us more time to get going to
work. A few times, he flew up to the Sky Port on the Merrimack River in Methuen
to pick us up, which was great fun. On take off, he flew under the Route 93
bridge, and did not tell us until later! He was a great guy and an excellent
pilot. Norm landed us in Cuttyhunk Pond, the harbor where he had his own float.
 |
| That's the sea plane and that's my dad on the right. |
Upon arriving, either by boat or by plane, there would always be a gathering of
the island inhabitants to pick up their groceries and supplies. During the
summer, many of the men served as guides for sports fishermen going after the
stripers. In the winter, they worked for the summer residents as carpenters and
tradesmen. They had beautiful and sturdy boats called “bass boats” that are no
longer used, because the bass found other waters up the coast in the
Newburyport area and the coast of Maine.
In the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day) the Alert made a round trip every day. The rest of the year it made only two trips a week (Tuesday and Friday). We would plan to go out on Tuesday and hope that we would have completed our work by Friday. On more than one occasion, however, due to the weather or size of the job, we would have to lay over until the next trip. I always brought a small portable Monroe calculator along, and did the day’s computations so that I would have a complete traverse done by the time we left. We usually went over in the off-season, to make sure we would have accommodations at the Poplars, one of two boarding houses on the island. This way, we did not meet many of the summer residents. However, word word passed around that we were doing survey work, and eventually people sent word to us to contact them. In this way, we began to get work from the summer and year-round inhabitants.
To get around the island, we rented a beat-up old jeep with few floorboards for $5 a day from an old-timer named Alan Potter. On the very first visit, while we were waiting to leave on the Alert, I backed the jeep down a slope near the dock and almost wound up in the drink, much to the enjoyment of our crew. Fortunately one of the residents was handy with his jeep and pulled me back up. Was I embarrassed!
 |
| The Infamous Jeep |
Speaking of jeeps, some residents brought their vehicles over from New Bedford by boat. Although there are not many paved roads to drive on, the vehicles were needed to carry supplies to the two boarding houses, the general store, and groceries and other necessities to the permanent and summer residents’ dwellings. Over the years, the vehicles were subject to the weather of coastal New England and gradually deteriorated to the condition such as found in Mr. Potter’s jeep. They neglected to register their vehicles on a yearly basis, and so if word leaked out that the man from the Registry of Motor Vehicles was on his way out, they all drove their cars to a remote part of the island they called “the dump,” where they pretty much “hid them in plain sight.” Thus they averted another year of registration fees. No fools, these islanders.
The Poplars, where we stayed on our visits, was one of two boarding houses catering mainly to sport fishermen and short-term visitors. It consisted, in the 1960’s, of the main building, which had four bedrooms for guests, the main dining room, a large kitchen, and a living room where guests could watch television in the evening. There was a one story annex that contained 3 bedrooms and 3 small cottages that slept two or three guests. Each cottage had a fireplace that kept the place warm on cool fall nights. The house had a glassed-in porch that was unusual in that the floor sloped away from the house and had scuppers to let the water run out, just like on a ship.
 |
| The Poplars |
The Poplars was run by Lucille Allen, who provided us with sumptuous meals that included bass, lobster, steak, and chops. If our work took us to a far side of the island, she packed us a great lunch to save time in traveling back and forth. Lucille traveled around the world with her father, who was the captain of a tall ship. Her husband, Clarence, was a character. He can be characterized by the following conversation regarding a brass compass that was embedded in concrete at the front of the main house:
Clarence: Yessir, the front of this house is runnin’ north and south.
Me: Well then, that means the sides of the house are runnin’ east and west, right?
Clarence: “Pert neah!”
Some time between our visits, Lucille decided to retire, and the property was sold to Mildred and Ken Fullerton. They continued to run it as a boarding house. At one point, they had difficulty paying the taxes and were in jeopardy of losing the place. Fortunately, I was able to subdivide it into two lots, of which they sold one, allowing them to pay off the taxes due. They were very appreciative.
The Poplars had one of the two telephones on the island. It was one of those phones where one cranked a handle on the side of the base in order to get the operator, who was based over on the mainland. The other phone was more public and was a pay phone at the Broadway, at the corner of the walkway that goes past the Poplars on its way down to the public dock.
One day, while we were in the process of the East End survey, we were hit with a storm of hurricane proportions. In the evening, we were informed that a Coast Guard vessel had gotten hung up on the Sou au Pigs Reef not too far off the south of the island, and was breaking up. Everyone rushed out to see if any flotsam and jetsam were washing up on the causeway to Canapitsit (the channel running between Cuttyhunk and Nashawena). We joined in the search and rushed down to the barges on the causeway to see if we could see or find anything. The sea was very rough, but we didn’t find anything except some pieces of splintered wood from the hull of the ship.
A few nights later, George Clark and I took advantage of a clear moonlit night to try a little fishing. We drove the jeep down to the causeway and kept the headlights on. George went out on the barges and cast his line. My line got fouled up and I was still untangling it when George hauled in a 38 pound striper. I could have kicked myself, but I was happy for George, because he was a very good fisherman.
In 1967, Cornelius Wood wanted to sell off about 350 acres on the west end, with a provision that it be kept open to the public and a stipulation that those who used it take back out everything they brought in. The parcel contains a body of water called “West End Pond,” containing approximately 50 acres. It is not fresh water, as it is fed by sea r through a small opening on Buzzard’s Bay. The water there is brackish and not good for fishing, though the opening is a good breeding ground for mussels, and someone may have improved it since then.
There once was a true light house with a tender’s house located nearby, but that was replaced with a smaller structure operated by batteries during the war. There is also a small island in the pond on which the South Dartmouth Historical Society erected a stone monument of about 30 feet in height dedicated to Bartholomew Gosnold. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s explorers who discovered and named the Elizabeth Island chain.
Our survey of the West End involved a traverse using the mean high water marks and tying the whole together by connecting it to the end of the lines across the center of the island which we had set up in 1965. My crew consisted of George Clark and Paul Duggan. As we proceeded along the coast line from high water mark to high water mark, turning our angles and measuring distances, George would be the lead man giving the foresight. One day, as Paul and I approached the area of the Gosnold Monument, we heard some loud singing. When we arrived, there was George, swimming in the pond. Without further adieu, Paul and I undressed and joined him! The water was warm and pleasant, although the bottom was a little muddy. However, it was refreshing, and afterward we continued our work with renewed spirits.
 |
| The Gosnold Monument |
I left Dad’s firm in June 1968, six months after my mother died. For the next five years, I worked for a general contractor, but kept my surveyor’s registration alive by accepting private surveys. Then in 1970, Charles Anderson, Engineer for the Massachusetts Land Court, asked Mr. Wood if I could conduct a special survey at Cuttyhunk for the Land Court. The intent was to wrap up all the surveys done there by me, to tie on to any bounds which may have been set by previous surveyors, and to draw a plan showing all the connections. All this was to be done at Mr. Wood’s expense. He graciously agreed, so I went there once again for what I called, “Operation Boundhound.” I took one man with me, and stayed once more at the Poplars, which was now called The Allen House. I have in my files a plan of this survey, which shows connections to every bound of record on Cuttyhunk. Mr. Anderson of the Mass. Land Court was greatly pleased.
My final work regarding Cuttyhunk was in the form of a planning and zoning map, which I drew in 1973 at the request of the Selectmen - Alan Wilder, Alphons P. Tilton, and Bruce Borjas. This plan, in reduced scale, was used as the cover for the Town’s Annual Report for 1972.
There is one final plan that I drew for a member of the Wood family. Ariel Wood Panzecchi, Cornelius Wood’s daughter who inherited Winter House, wanted to donate some land to the Cuttyhunk Historical Society. I drew a plan of a parcel of land at the corner of Broadway and Road to the Hill, next to the Town Hall. A small museum has since been built on this parcel, which I have yet to see. I sent the curator, Mrs. Troidell, a number of pen and ink sketches of various sites drawn by George Clark to sell to the general public for the benefit of the museum only.
Cuttyhunk remains a special place in my memory. All in all, with a good night’s sleep in the salty sea air and a full English breakfast every morning, I couldn’t help but feel refreshed for a good day’s work in an environment far removed from my usual daily routine. I consider myself blessed and shall always remember my good fortune to meet the people on Cuttyhunk, and to become familiar, if only for a brief time, with life on an island.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
And They Said it Wouldn't Last ....
On June 9th, Hubby and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary!
I KNOW! THAT'S A LONG TIME!
This is us on our 28th anniversary two years ago. We celebrated it at York Harbor Inn in York Maine, which is where we got married. We just happened to be in New England at that time during our 2012 RV Road Trip. We hadn't planned to be there - in fact we were only there because of a delay in our travel plans caused by a problem with the RV. But it was a silver lining for it to work out that way!
The day we got married - June 9, 1984, it was 103 degrees!
I KNOW! WHEN IS IT EVER 103 DEGREES IN MAINE????
June 9, 1984, that's when.
When we met, I was 25 and he was 40.
I KNOW! THAT SOUNDS SCANDALOUS!
We married when I was 28.5 and he was 44. We'd both been married before.
I KNOW! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I'D ALREADY BEEN
MARRIED AND DIVORCED BY THE AGE OF 25!
Wait ... it gets better...
Hubby had been married and divorced TWICE!
I KNOW! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT????
So at our house, we don't make fun of the Multiply-Married.When Dick met actress Ali MacGraw (now I'm name-dropping) at my book signing in Santa Fe, they bonded over their similar marital histories ... except she'd been divorced one more time than he had.
 |
| That's Ali at my signing - isn't she beautiful?? |
ANYWAY! DICK (AKA RVPAINTER) AND I HAVE NOW BEEN MARRIED FOR 30 YEARS.
I think that it takes a LONG time to figure out how to be with another person in a really good way. There's always that tug-of-war between bonding with another and maintaining an individual identity, especially at the beginning.
And there were a lot of challenges for us at first because of high tension with Dick's ex. (High tension is a euphemism for "we lived in terror"). In those days, fathers weren't treated with much (much is a euphemism for "any") respect when it came to custody rights - it was all about the mom. But we made his son a priority and made sure we never missed our "that's-all-you-get" court-allotted every-other-weekend and one week of summer vacation. We were under constant threat of losing visitation if we were EVER five minutes late bringing him home. (I'm not making that up). We were never allowed to have him on Christmas - ever, which was very unkind. (Very unkind is a euphemism for MEAN.) We also never missed a support payment or any other kind of support for that matter. I think things have gotten more equitable for fathers in divorce now when it comes to joint custody and other rights. At least I hope so!
WOW! I WENT OFF ON A LITTLE RANT THERE!
DO I SOUND BITTER?
NAH ... It's water under the dam. I mean over the bridge. I mean - you know what I mean! But I can still be outraged by injustice right? It's RIGHT to be outraged by injustice....RIGHT????DO I SOUND BITTER?
BUT I DIGRESS!
Dick had a heart attack at the age of 49 and that was pretty scary. Worse, it was while we were on vacation in ARUBA! He got to spend the better part of a week at the Dr. Horacio E. Oduber Hospital, where he received excellent and kindly care except for that one nurse who seemed to not like him and left the thermometer in his ... well, never mind about that.
I KNOW! WAY TO SPOIL A NICE VACATION, DICK!
But he's been fine ever since, and he's 74 now! (You can do the math to figure out how old I am).
Like everyone, we've had rough times and good times.
We've gained friends and lost friends. The friends we have now are the best ones ever - they are good for us and we for them. They are the people with whom we can laugh like little kids, and cry for their sorrows like they were our own.
We've learned and grown together. I supported his growth as an artist and he supported mine as a writer and a yoga teacher.
Some of the hard times were REALLY hard, but those times actually brought us closer. In the face of trouble, we became a united front. And the good times were sweeter and more precious for having had times that were hard.
I can honestly say that we are closer now than we've ever been. Things that used to provoke an argument now just make us laugh. We are easier with each other and more accepting of each other's quirks. (He's a tad OCD, and I am annoyingly optimistic).
After 30 years, we know we'll be there for each other, guaranteed. We're family, and family sticks together.
So, Happy Anniversary to my Sweetheart and thank you for sharing this journey called life with me.
All our old photos are in our 10 BY 10 STORAGE UNIT IN SANTA FE, so I can't show you how we looked way back in 1984. But this is how we look now:
I KNOW! WE ARE STILL WICKED CUTE, HUH?
When we were first together and working our buns off, we dreamed of living in a warm climate with sunshine and nice beaches. Happy to say that finally, 30 years later, we do!
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Review and Guest Post: Becky Lewellen Povich, Author of From Pigtails to Chin Hairs
When writer and humorist Becky Lewellen Povich said she was penning her memoir, I couldn't wait to read it. Well, she made me wait ... and wait ... and wait ... but while I waited, she wrote ... and wrote ... and wrote ... and now her wonderful book, FROM PIGTAILS TO CHIN HAIRS is finally available! And it was SO worth the wait!
So first, here's my review of her book. After that you'll find a funny post from Becky's blog and all the pertinent links to her book and website.
REVIEW of FROM PIGTAILS TO CHIN HAIRS:
If you grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, you will LOVE this book! And even if you didn't, it will make that era come vividly to life for you. It's filled with humorous vignettes, but like any good memoir, it's also about life. And as we all know, life isn't always rosy.
I am a child of that era too, and even though Becky grew up in Missouri and I grew up in Massachusetts, sometimes I felt like Becky and I shared the same childhood! We watched the same TV shows, played marbles in our driveways and made potholders that we sold to our neighbors. (Did everybody do that???)
Her writing is witty and her storytelling skills masterful. And she knows just how and when, in the middle of the stories of happy times, to foreshadow some harder times to come. Her prose is alternately laugh-out-loud funny and poignant. Becky says there will be a sequel to this memoir, and I can't wait to read it.
Now here's a humorous post from Becky's blog. At the end, you'll find the links to her blog, website and pages on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Vern, BBQ Grill, Hazel, & Roseanne Roseannadanna
So first, here's my review of her book. After that you'll find a funny post from Becky's blog and all the pertinent links to her book and website.
REVIEW of FROM PIGTAILS TO CHIN HAIRS:
If you grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, you will LOVE this book! And even if you didn't, it will make that era come vividly to life for you. It's filled with humorous vignettes, but like any good memoir, it's also about life. And as we all know, life isn't always rosy.
I am a child of that era too, and even though Becky grew up in Missouri and I grew up in Massachusetts, sometimes I felt like Becky and I shared the same childhood! We watched the same TV shows, played marbles in our driveways and made potholders that we sold to our neighbors. (Did everybody do that???)
Her writing is witty and her storytelling skills masterful. And she knows just how and when, in the middle of the stories of happy times, to foreshadow some harder times to come. Her prose is alternately laugh-out-loud funny and poignant. Becky says there will be a sequel to this memoir, and I can't wait to read it.
Now here's a humorous post from Becky's blog. At the end, you'll find the links to her blog, website and pages on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Vern, BBQ Grill, Hazel, & Roseanne Roseannadanna
I've blogged a few times
about my clumsiness; falling down steps, bumping into furniture, and tripping
over this or that. Well at 6:30am one morning, when Vern and I were
outside, I fell and...
as Hazel would say, it was a doozy!
I
took this picture from our deck last year.
Do
you see that tiny little silver spec in the grass?
Same
picture. Cropped closer.
Do
you see it now?
Same
photo again. Cropped even closer.
Yes,
there it is. The Culprit.
This is the drive-way & parking lot behind our townhouse. The decks are over the garages, and we have a beautiful and private view. Vern and I have walked along, and up and down, that little grassy hill zillions of times. He always knows when, and how to, back up and out of an area. Normally, if he sniffs too close or behind that BBQ grill, I pull gently on his leash, and he then backs out and trots along the front of it.
Vern
Well, that morning he was quite a bit behind it, in the shrubs. So I decided to pull him out of there, on the back side of the grill, but frontwards. He got confused and turned the other way, and so before I could lift the leash up high enough, he and I kind of "clothes-lined" the grill!
As it began to roll down, I tried to stop it, and somehow slipped or tripped, bounced around a bit and fell down the little hill, landing on my back and derriere on the hard concrete. As that was happening, the grill's lid fell off and clanked, my glasses and baseball cap flew off my head, and my cell phone slid out of my pocket.
I sat there for a few minutes and knew I hadn't broken any bones, thank goodness, but my left knee and left arm hurt quite a bit.
I wondered if anyone heard or witnessed my tumble, but I really didn't care one way or the other. I was so glad I had on jeans, because I could tell my left knee was scraped and bleeding, and it would've been a lot worse with shorts on.
Vern and I walked home. I cleaned up my scrapes and crawled back into bed.
“The Ronald” wasn't a bit aware of it until a couple of hours later when he woke up and I told him all about my latest escapade, and then added,
"It just goes to show you, it's always something--if it ain't one thing, it's another." -- Roseanne Roseannadanna
Becky's Links:
Sunday, June 1, 2014
A Grandma's Review of The Christmas Village
What a lovely thing to wake up to ... this review of The Christmas Village from a grandma who is reading it for the second time with her grandson:
"I'm reading this wonderful story with my grandson, because he's too young to read it to himself. Despite that, he is on the edge of his seat (or my lap!) and always sighs with regret when we have to stop reading until the next day.This is our second reading, and we're both enjoying it even more than the first time. We're noticing more details, and feel like we know Jamie, Kelly and Chris, better.This is a classic for sure in our family, and we have Return to Canterbury ready to read next! Many thanks to Ms. Goodwin for helping me make more great memories with my grandson!"
Reviews like this one are what keep us writers going!
Both The Christmas Village and Return to Canterbury are ON SALE for summer. The Christmas Village is only 99 cents for Kindle and $8.99 paperback! Return to Canterbury takes place over the Fourth of July, so now is the perfect time to read The Christmas Village and follow up with Return to Canterbury. Happy Summer Reading everyone!
"I'm reading this wonderful story with my grandson, because he's too young to read it to himself. Despite that, he is on the edge of his seat (or my lap!) and always sighs with regret when we have to stop reading until the next day.This is our second reading, and we're both enjoying it even more than the first time. We're noticing more details, and feel like we know Jamie, Kelly and Chris, better.This is a classic for sure in our family, and we have Return to Canterbury ready to read next! Many thanks to Ms. Goodwin for helping me make more great memories with my grandson!"
Reviews like this one are what keep us writers going!
Both The Christmas Village and Return to Canterbury are ON SALE for summer. The Christmas Village is only 99 cents for Kindle and $8.99 paperback! Return to Canterbury takes place over the Fourth of July, so now is the perfect time to read The Christmas Village and follow up with Return to Canterbury. Happy Summer Reading everyone!
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