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Julia Sneden wrote: My grandmothers taught me how to iron. In our multi-generation household, my parents or occasional hired helpers did the physically challenging work like gardening, vacuuming, window washing, carpentry, cooking, and laundry. My grandmothers and great aunt did less active things like polishing silver, ironing, setting the table, dusting, and drying the dishes. Ironing was a joint effort. The two grandmothers took turns, one each washday, while my great aunt read aloud to them. I would hang out nearby, just to hear my Aunt Martha read, usually from The Saturday Evening Post or The Atlantic Monthly. Her voice was light and gentle, and her diction precise without being fussy. more »

I know I complain about the squirrels eating everything we plant, the reason we constructed a screened-in vegetable garden, but in truth, I like them. They are inventive and extremely smart. They help me remember that 'different' is only an adjective, it does not mean inferior. And different is how we all are, from other life forms and from each other. If only we can learn to appreciate the value of differences within all of life, perhaps we would not be so quick to do harmful things to each other. more »

Julia Sneden wrote: My father told me about the Fourth of July that took place in 1910, when he was 4 years old. He grew up on his grandfather’s prune ranch, in thrall to a slew of young aunts and uncles. Each Fourth, the uncles staged a display of fireworks for the family and the working crews (and their families) that lived on or near the ranch. The uncles would fire their pyrotechnics from a metal, flatbed wagon which was, perhaps, normally used as a drying bed for the prunes when they were harvested. One year, someone or something caused the wagon to up-end just as the display was lit, and instead of shooting up, the fountains shot straight at the crowd standing by the barn. more »

In the five-year prospective study, researchers followed more than 5,800 women ages 63 to 97 to find out if higher amounts of light physical activity were associated with reduced risks of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease. The current study involved a racially and ethnically diverse group of 5,861 women who were enrolled between 2012 and 2014. None had a history of myocardial infarction or stroke. Participants wore hip-mounted accelerometers, a device like a fitness tracker, that measured their movement 24 hours a day for seven consecutive days. The researchers then followed the participants for almost five years, tracking cardiovascular disease events such as heart attacks and strokes. more »