Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JUNE 14, 2023 – (Cont.) If for many years it played a central role in Mother’s life, the piano was rivaled—even exceeded at times—by other pursuits. One was the Junior Great Books program, of which Mother became a principal proponent and leader in the local public schools. As with everything else she tackled, Mother threw …
JUNE 13, 2023 – Mother was on the phone a lot when I was a kid. If she had a question about something—anything—or developed an urge to talk to someone outside our household, she never hesitated to pick up the phone and call away. However, she knew lots of people, and she did lots of …
JUNE 12, 2023 – (Cont.) Mother had many friends besides Crystal Ball Chase and Kay Jacobson. Friends who were kind and friendly and just as smart as Crystal Ball and Kay. Friends such as Marian Fletcher, who politically was as stridently liberal as Dad was steadfastly conservative. Even as a young kid, I was struck …
JUNE 11, 2023 – (Cont.) One day when I was in second grade, flyers were distributed as we kids stampeded out the doorway. The leaflets promoted “David Rubinoff and his Violin” in matinee and evening “concerts” the following day at the Anoka High School Auditorium. The next day happened to be a day off from …
JUNE 10, 2023 – Some of the people who visited Mother were as oddly brilliant as she was but with a severity altogether absent from Mother’s personality. Christabelle Chase, for example. Christabelle lived on the other side of town and was the wealthy widow of a newspaperman who’d once been in the running for governor. …
JUNE 9, 2023 – (Cont.) Two weekends later, Mother informed me that she had sold the canoe. I was astounded. Mother never got rid of anything. She didn’t buy that much, and she never, ever got rid of anything except newspapers, organic garbage, and some of the junk mail. Why on earth had she wanted …
JUNE 8, 2023 – (Cont.) Down by the permanent steps that led to where the dock was supposed to be installed, I turned over Mother’s light, 13-foot aluminum canoe. It had been lying upside down there for over a year. It was tied to a tree, and the rope was doubled up so many times, …
JUNE 7, 2023 – (Cont.) Mother’s virtuosity with the slide rule also made me think that I should cut her some slack. For a second, it occurred to me that her wackiness, which could embarrass me so much in public, might be related to her brilliance. A person acquainted with that brilliance but oblivious to …
JUNE 6, 2023 – (Cont.) On rainy, boring, summer days when I was a kid and after exhausting other entertainment options, I’d rummage through the drawers of the tall secretary in the living room to see if there was anything I’d missed on previous expeditions. There were the rubber stamps, the magnifying glass, the cute …
JUNE 5, 2023 – One of my earliest memories of Mother was the day when Mrs. Donaldson and another woman stopped in. I was too young to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle that arose from the commotion and very lively conversation, as they sat in our living room, bathed in sunlight, and sipped …
JUNE 4, 2023 – When you’re a kid, it’s the random, passing experience of little apparent consequence that can leave a lasting impression about a person. One such experience with Mother occurred for me on a warm, sunny, summer afternoon before I was school age. With her small-boned arms, Mother turned hard on the wheel …
JUNE 3, 2023 – When I was young, Dad called Mother “Rabbit,” a term of endearment expressed often in the kitchen while she was cooking supper and he was checking on her progress and wrapping his long arms around her in a warm embrace. But most of the time, he called her “Boots.” I was …