Be You. It’s a new year. As usual, the world is handing out unsolicited instructions on who you should be, what you should fix, and how quickly you should become “better.” New goals. New rules. New versions of yourself that apparently need immediate rolling out. No. This year? Be who you want to be.Do what …
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Happy Holidays
I’m repeating this blog, originally posted it early in December 2023: Thanksgiving is over and the winter holidays are upon us. In chronological order they are: December 7-15—Hannukah. (Jewish) On eight consecutive nights, Jews gather with family and friends to light one additional candle in the menorah candelabra to commemorate the rededication …
Audacious Aging
DOES GETTING OLD GIVE YOU THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES? By Carol Purroy Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: Getting old is not for the faint of heart. It’s also not for the meek, the timid, or the “Guess I’ll just sit here quietly and disappear” crowd. Getting old is for the audacious. This …
Tipping
… is a trending topic. I won’t comment on the current situation, not today, anyway. My story on tipping happened 69 years ago. It’s in my book of memoirs: That’s Life—Many Mini-Memoirs,2010, A-Z Publishing. (Click on book title for more info.) To Tip or Not to Tip…that is the question Nineteen years old I was, …
Little Free Library
I had intended to write this blog about my Little Free Library, but it was going to be a different blog. I was going to write about the things I’ve learned having a Little Free Library in my front yard: I put it there for the people in my neighborhood, a working class neighborhood with …
Fireworks
Fireworks—pyrotechnics—are such a big part of New Year’s Eve celebrations that it’s hard to imagine this night without them. It wasn’t always that way, though. It’s a relatively recent development in America. The first time I ever experienced this phenomenon was the night of the 1955/56 New Year’s Eve. I, an American, was living in …
A Christmas Memoir
The First Christmas I Remember Our 1940 Christmas holiday marked the end of an era—a beautiful era. I’m sure this Christmas Eve was not much different from every previous Christmas Eve of my life (except for the real live Santa), it’s just the first one I remember. We lived in the Central Valley farmhouse my …
Your Legacy
Have you ever looked at a genealogy chart—a “family tree”—and thought, every one of those people had a lifetime of stories: adventures and misadventures, jobs or professions, successes and failures, likes and dislikes, friends and lovers, et cetera. Yet chances are no one knows much, if anything, about them. All that remains is their name …
The Holidays
Thanksgiving is over and the winter holidays are upon us. In chronological order they are: December 7-15—Hannukah. (Jewish) On eight consecutive nights, Jews gather with family and friends to light one additional candle in the menorah candelabra to commemorate the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC, after …