Like most other families, when mine gets together there will be stories. Some stories are the ritual retelling of past shared memories, the mythology we’ve created and strive to preserve. Other stories are simply gossip, told family-style, which in ours means we are usually talking about the absent relative, so there’s additional incentive to attend family gatherings if you want to protect your reputation or tell your side of the story. Lastly, we tell stories to impart our values and create a family legacy for the next generation. Continue reading
Mixed Metaphors
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! – A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.
Tag Archives: Racine
The Changing Seasons
Next Sunday is the autumnal equinox, the official beginning of fall, when day and night are nearly equal. One can already see the sun’s position in the sky changing and its effect on daylight. Soon too, the leaves will change from their verdant hues to vibrant shades of carmine, crimson, burnt orange, golden yellows and finally tawny browns before they fall to the ground. Continue reading
Labor Day: May Day in September
Today is Labor Day, the first Monday in September, the day President Grover Cleveland declared a national holiday in 1894. The Knights of Labor and the Central Labor Union organized the first labor parade in New York City in 1887 prior to the national holiday. There had been efforts before to commemorate May 1st as a national holiday to celebrate American workers, but the tragic outcome of the Haymarket Massacre in 1886 made that date too volatile and controversial. On Tuesday, May 4, 1886 a peaceful rally by workers striking in support of an eight-hour workday was disrupted by a dynamite bomb thrown at police officers as they attempted to disperse the demonstrators. Seven police officers, four civilians and dozens of protesters and bystanders were injured. Again in 1894, following the Pullman Strike in Chicago with the death of workers by the U.S. Military and U.S. Marshals, Congress rushed legislation to make Labor Day in September a national holiday, a tribute to American workers.
The Lone Ranger, Annie Oakley and the Bride Doll
Today, I saw the premiere of “The Lone Ranger.” Critics have been ravaging the film for many reasons, but for this writer it was a nostalgic journey back to a time of childhood heroes and themes of good versus evil, white hats and black hats. Continue reading
Three Fathers
Father’s Day is Sunday and I’ve been reflecting on my family history and the role of the men in my life. I hail from a matriarchal background, from both my paternal and maternal lineages. The families were headed by women, by default due to death and abandonment on my father’s side, and because of death on my mother’s. The women, my great grandmothers and grandmothers were loyal, hardworking and committed to their namesakes and either outlived or outlasted their male counterparts. Today, my mother carries on the tradition and is the head of my immediate family, she is the glue that holds us together and usually has the last word. Continue reading
A Grateful Daughter
Every year when Mother’s Day approaches, I think about all the things I want to tell my mother, all the many ways I’m grateful to be her daughter. Most years I find one or two things to share with her, as I sit with her and hold her hand, I share a story about what it means to me to be her daughter. Continue reading
First Friend
Today is my sister Roz’s birthday. Every year, when we’d talk on the phone or see each other on her birthday, I’d comment that we could always count on a beautiful day. As I write, the grey clouds are receding, revealing blue sky and the promise of a pleasant spring day. Continue reading
The Ties That Bind
“As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.”
Today’s post is part film review, memoir and musing about the ties that bind us and explores the question of who makes up a family and how a family is made, nurtured, and maintained. Continue reading
Color Bind
This post is in response to a writing prompt from the LGBTQ Narratives Activist-Writers group. The prompt: When did we first become aware of our own race?
Some background: My story takes place in 1955 in Racine, an industrial community in Southeastern Wisconsin. Continue reading
The Day I Saw Jesus
First, I must confess that I’m a lapsed Catholic, or more precisely, a recovering Catholic. The recent selection of the new Pope, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has stirred up memories of childhood and my first conscious religious experience and hallucination. Continue reading