Relationships and Going Places

Managing to clothe eight children on a clergyman’s tiny salary must have been quite a feat. Mind you, this was in the days when mothers had to: (a) draw water from a creek or, if they were lucky, from a well; (b) cook on a wood stove, and keep the fire burning because it also heated the lower floor of the house; (c) wash clothes, including diapers, by hand; (d) wash and dry dishes for ten people and often more, by hand; (e) iron with a sod iron that was heated by setting it on the top of the stove, no thermostatic controls; (f) teach the younger children to read and write and cipher, when her husband was assigned to a remote posting where there were no schools; and (g) make or remake clothing for all members of the family. more »

her doting father, a successful lawyer, never seemed to question her questionable activities — or ask, “How come you’re not in college?” or “Isn’t it time you got a job?” or demand that she be home by ten. He never scolded her about not cleaning her room either because the Drews’ wonderful housekeeper did all the chores. (No hanky-panky between her and Mr. Drew either). more »

I had decided on painting a long, horizontal seascape seen from a low angle with long, late afternoon shadows. Wet sand in the foreground cradled a bottle washed up on the shoreline and inside the corked bottle was a rolled up, weathered piece of paper. more »

“Not every therapist is well trained in every disorder,” says Richard Dana, a psychologist in Newton, Mass. “Someone who is referred with obsessive-compulsive disorder may find that his therapist was not really trained in that area.” According to Herbert Klein, editor and publisher of Psychotherapy Finances, many therapists lost substantial income during the 1990s, when businesses shifted to managed-care insurance. As a result, some practitioners don’t feel they can afford to turn away patients. more »