Relationships and Going Places

We do both enjoy travel and have taken many trips together. I prefer a fixed itinerary. Not Sally, of course. She abhors being tied to a particular schedule. And while I much prefer to fly to a destination more than a few hundred miles away, Sally would rather drive — again, the schedule phobia, and also because her car has a huge trunk which she can pack with every article of clothing she has owned since college and still have room for all the treasures she’ll buy along the way. more »

As a young woman, I had the good fortune to accompany my father and his life-long friend on a walk through our hometown cemetery. The warm summer evening, with the sun casting long shadows behind the grave stones, made me feel that life might never end, even though the location insisted otherwise. more »

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 »