Janet's Blog

I don’t remember the actual wedding ceremony, or the reception, either, when my Aunt Marj married Norm, but I know the wedding was held at the Methodist church in Norfolk. By the time I was nine years old, I had attended a few weddings and receptions and, by then, I realized that most church weddings and receptions were about the same; they were special occasions, for sure, launching marriages that might last for decades, but the wedding ceremony itself was nothing memorable for a child who had attended more than one, and the wedding cake and punch, while satisfying, weren’t much different than any other cake and punch I'd ever had. Just a few weeks earlier, my family had moved from the Oxnard Hotel in Norfolk to the Hotel Mary-Etta in Fairbury. The wedding would have marked the first time our family returned to Norfolk for a visit, so that added to our excitement. I remember arriving at Grandpa and Grandma's house that mild June morning, and finding a houseful of relatives scu...

Doves and pigeons, pigeons and doves: ever since I was a little girl, I’ve noticed them. In my experience, I've found pigeons to be city birds, while doves live in smaller communities or in the country.  Years ago, even centuries ago, people hunted both birds for food. Even now, they are still hunted in some parts of the world.  Over the years, I’ve been acquainted with a few people who hunt doves, and I’ve known some who shoot pigeons because they are considered to be nuisance birds, but I've never known anyone who hunts pigeons to provide food for their families. I’ve enjoyed eating pheasants, quail, and wild turkey, and I’ve suffered through meals of duck and goose, but I’ve never eaten either pigeons (sometimes called squabs) or doves.   In the US, pigeons are not currently a popular food because they can’t be raised commercially in large numbers, making them too expensive to eat. I suspect the same is true for doves. Additionally, even country pigeons are associated...

Have you ever noticed how one event leads to another, and another, all through our lives? For example... Because my Dad was in the Army, I was born at Fort Benning, Georgia. Because my parents grew up in the Bloomfield area, so did I, at least for a little while. Beause my Dad was raised in the Methodist church, so was I, until we moved away from Bloomfield. Because my Dad's parents farmed, Dad did, too, after he left the Army. Because Dad received training to be a company clerk in the Army, he realized he had the skills to do something besides farming. That's why we moved to Norfolk, and Mom and Dad began their venture into the hotel business. Because I grew up in hotels, I lived in a more diverse community than most of my extended family and friends, and learned skills that most kids didn't have. Because we had no backyard, I joined my family in exploring the surrounding parks and countryside nearly every weekend, which inevitably resulted in closer family relationships a...

When I was a little girl, I wore dresses--plaid dresses. Plain colored dresses, if I wore them at all, were for church. In the winter, I wore red, navy blue, or white, heavy tights under my dresses. Little girls never wore black, not even black tights. When the weather was hot, I might wear a short set, with matching shirt and shorts, or a one-piece sunsuit, but only at home. If we were going someplace, I usually wore a plaid dress. This is me on my sixth birthday, with the doll cake my grandma made for me. My dress was gold and brown plaid, but a shinier, fancier plaid than usual, since it was a special occasion.  Most plaid dresses came in short-sleeve versions only. When the weather was chilly, I wore a cardigan on top. It didn't necessarily match my dress, but that didn't matter, since warmth was the only goal. If the weather was really cold, I wore slacks under my dress when I was outside, but the pants came off when I went indoors.  I was seven in this picture, which was...

When Meagan asked if she could bring the grandkids to play in our yard yesterday afternoon, I was excited to have them visit, even though we had to practice some social distancing. We have a big backyard, with plenty of activities to keep the kids busy, so I didn't need to plan any particular projects for them to do. But, I did remember that the calendar had changed; it was the first day of May--May Day--so I decided to put together some May baskets for them. I had to make a quick trip to Dollar General to pick up a few necessities anyway, but when I checked the shelves for some M&Ms, I had to make do with peanut butter ones, because the plain M&Ms were all gone. I guess M&Ms must be a universal May Day tradition. Later, when I checked on FaceBook, I noticed several people mentioning May Baskets this year. Since everyone is mostly at home, more people have time to celebrate the old May Day tradition, some for the very first time. And besides, delivering May baskets...

Here we are at home, socially isolated to prevent the spread of COVID-19, that new coronavirus that suddenly appeared in China a couple of months ago. Never in my lifetime have I ever experienced this kind of reaction to a virus. It seems as though the whole world is quarantined.  Except for Levi's therapy and an occasional trip to the grocery store, we are staying home most of the time this week, and into the near future. We are not really quarantined, since none of us are sick, but the kids and I are isolating ourselves at home to help prevent the spread of this new, nasty virus. Bill is going to work as usual, with some recently added COVID-19 protocol, in an effort to provided essential TV and internet services to the homebound people who need it now, more than ever.  Yesterday, when I took Levi to the hospital for his appointment, we had to don face masks because I drove to an appointment in Fort Collins last week; since then, at least one health care worker the...

No one denied that my little brother, Danny, was smart. He spoke plainly, in complete sentences, for several months before he even turned two. He was curious about everything, often taking things apart that would have been better left alone. When he was four, he taught himself to read. After Grandpa taught him how to play checkers, he soon won more often than he lost. A few years later, he taught me to play chess, but I quit playing with him before too long, because I could never beat him. As he grew, Danny became an avid reader; when nothing else was available, he read the whole set of encylopedias, cover to cover. Danny was just three when our family moved to the Oxnard Hotel in Norfolk. We lived in the main level, manager's apartment, which had a south-facing, outside door, leading to our trikes and the sandbox Dad had installed for us, as well as a large, sometimes vacant, used car lot, where we often played. Another door opened from the north side of our apartment into th...

Here I sit, watching the snow fall steadily down, outside the kitchen window. The blizzard hasn't really started yet, but the freezing rain, followed by this snow, has arrived, just as numerous meteorologists have predicted, so I expect the winds to crank up to hurricane force within a couple of hours, as forecasted.  After a relatively dry winter, here in the Nebraska Panhandle, we have already had about sixteen inches of heavy, wet, snow in March. This year, March has come in like a lion. You've probably heard the old adage, "in like a lion, out like a lamb," referring to the month of March, which is supposed to start out with winter's full fury, and end with the promise of spring. I think it really worked that way, most years, when I was a little girl living in northeastern Nebraska. When we moved down to Fairbury, though, March sometimes started off with spring-like weather right away. When Bill and I  relocated to northern Michigan, we were surprised...

I was five that summer, the only summer we lived in the First Street house in Norfolk. After supper one evening, Mom and Danny and I piled into the car with Dad to visit a junkyard of some kind, before it got dark. I loved it when Dad said, "Let's take a ride," because we were sure to see something new, or have an adventure of some kind. And, on the way home, I was always hopeful that we would stop at a Drive-In for an ice cream cone. I don't remember if we rode in the blue, '55 Ford, or if we had the red, Rambler station wagon by then, but I know there were no seatbelts in our car. I probably rode in the back seat, cruising from one window to the other, or leaning over the back of the seat in front of me to talk to Mom. Danny may have been sitting in Mom's lap, or next to her on the front bench seat. I don't know what Dad was looking for at the junkyard, but he and Mom got out of the car, and he told me, quite firmly, to stay put. So, I did what I alw...