Helen and Teacher
The Story of my Life
Monday, March 30, 2020
Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: Pym and Covid-19
Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: Pym and Covid-19: I have to wonder how Pym would have handled self isolation and the Corona Virus. I'm sure she would have taken to her pen and shared he...
American Doll and Toy Museum: What's the Buzz? Beekeeping and Dolls!
American Doll and Toy Museum: What's the Buzz? Beekeeping and Dolls!: In his classic Dolls and Puppets , Max von Boehn includes human shaped bee hives that are life-sized among this explorations of the word &qu...
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
When Memories Serve Us
Good morning; warmer, sunny weather is coming! For today, think of ten good memories from this time of year, then write them down. If you have photos or souvenirs, create a Facebook page. We are alive, and survived another day. Rejoice and be glad.
My memories for this time of year include:
1. The trip I took to Edmonton to meet my parents for Easter. My dad was on a business trip, my mom and I toured the Mall of the Americas. The three of us had dinners at great places, prowled antique shops, and saw cultural centers for Native American and Czech heritages.
2. Again, with my folks, we took off for New Salem, IL, and toured the Lincoln sites once again. Always a favorite destination for us.
3. Dad and I entered the annual kite flying contest; we won every year. The year my Uncle Jim came, we won everything, including the trophy and sweepstakes. My choral teacher was judging, and I was really proud. We used to make our own Hexagon kites, like dad had when he was a kid.
There are others involving early spring, and me working on container gardens. Many others being on spring break, having a great drive home, hitting the antique stores and spring sales with my mom, my shopping, collecting buddy.
In this time of distress for all of us, I do what my friend Violet did in her 90s after her family confined her unnecessarily to a nursing home. I pick a happy memory, and think about it for the day.
My memories for this time of year include:
1. The trip I took to Edmonton to meet my parents for Easter. My dad was on a business trip, my mom and I toured the Mall of the Americas. The three of us had dinners at great places, prowled antique shops, and saw cultural centers for Native American and Czech heritages.
2. Again, with my folks, we took off for New Salem, IL, and toured the Lincoln sites once again. Always a favorite destination for us.
3. Dad and I entered the annual kite flying contest; we won every year. The year my Uncle Jim came, we won everything, including the trophy and sweepstakes. My choral teacher was judging, and I was really proud. We used to make our own Hexagon kites, like dad had when he was a kid.
There are others involving early spring, and me working on container gardens. Many others being on spring break, having a great drive home, hitting the antique stores and spring sales with my mom, my shopping, collecting buddy.
In this time of distress for all of us, I do what my friend Violet did in her 90s after her family confined her unnecessarily to a nursing home. I pick a happy memory, and think about it for the day.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
American Doll and Toy Museum: Keep Smiling!
American Doll and Toy Museum: Keep Smiling!: If ever we needed Shirley Temple, we need her optimism and sunny smile, now. Yet, we can remember her, and other friends and family no long...
Monday, February 17, 2020
American Doll and Toy Museum: On Souvenirs
American Doll and Toy Museum: On Souvenirs: I'm writing in praise of all kinds of souvenirs in this post, all kinds. Not just dolls, but spoons, thimbles, snapshots, pennants, pat...
Friday, January 24, 2020
What makes a book a success?
Briefly, in fiction, poetry, drama, for a book to be a success the reader has to care about the characters. Some beautifully written books leave us cold because we don't like or care about the people in them. I've read, and enjoyed, badly written books, some romances, some sci fi, some mystery, because I cared about the character, even if they were two dimensionally drawn and shallow. Something made me care.
I like reading when I was young, Jackie and Joan Collins books; I didn't think they were going into the literary canon, but there characters in them I worried over. Same with Judith Krantz. Barbara Pym has made a career of birthing memorable characters, and Jane Eyre, Ann Karenina, and Jo March have transcended the pages of their own novel homes. So has Nora from A Dolls House, so have any number of Shakespeare heroes and heroines. Comic heroes do the same to us, hence passionate discussions over who is better, Superman or Batman. Ahab, Ishmael, Lord Jim, Billly Budd, Tess, we lvoe and care for them. Even our animal protagonists get to us, Bambi, Dumbo, Beautiful Joe, Black Beauty, Lassie, Stellaluna, on and on.
Plots are nice, nonfiction passions make those books go round, but in the world of fiction, we have to care, and the character needn't be the most moral, law abiding creature in the book. Like the real people in our lives, fictional folk have to spark an emotion; we don't care how they've been created via pen and paper, but we care about them and what happens to them. That is what drives the story.
I like reading when I was young, Jackie and Joan Collins books; I didn't think they were going into the literary canon, but there characters in them I worried over. Same with Judith Krantz. Barbara Pym has made a career of birthing memorable characters, and Jane Eyre, Ann Karenina, and Jo March have transcended the pages of their own novel homes. So has Nora from A Dolls House, so have any number of Shakespeare heroes and heroines. Comic heroes do the same to us, hence passionate discussions over who is better, Superman or Batman. Ahab, Ishmael, Lord Jim, Billly Budd, Tess, we lvoe and care for them. Even our animal protagonists get to us, Bambi, Dumbo, Beautiful Joe, Black Beauty, Lassie, Stellaluna, on and on.
Plots are nice, nonfiction passions make those books go round, but in the world of fiction, we have to care, and the character needn't be the most moral, law abiding creature in the book. Like the real people in our lives, fictional folk have to spark an emotion; we don't care how they've been created via pen and paper, but we care about them and what happens to them. That is what drives the story.
Friday, January 10, 2020
On Loss
" I remembered that after my father died I would wake up in the morning and I would not remember for a minute that we had lost him, and then when I did, it was not so much amguian that I felt as a simple child's desire to be back in the time before he died."
Anne Rivers Siddons, The House Next Door
Anne Rivers Siddons, The House Next Door
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