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Showing posts from November, 2013

Anyone remember candy toys?

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To the left is a bag of candy toys. This is a blast from my childhood. I haven't seen any since I've been an adult. I found them on my first visit today to an Amish farmers' market in Mullica Hill, NJ. Candy toys were a Christmas season staple in our home. Mine came from Woolworth's (long gone too, I think), where they appeared after Thanksgiving in a large bin, behind glass, and were sold by the pound. Once they reached our house, they disappeared into a Secure Location. I was offered one from time to time as dessert. One, and only one! To this day, I have no idea where my mother hid them. Those I bought today are in the china closet (to keep them away from the dogs, or at least that's my excuse), in an anonymous white paper bag. Not that they're a secret, or anything.

That gray November day

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I think it was a gray, misty day in Delaware: November 22, 1963. We lived near the Delaware River in the area known as Edgemoor, north of the city of Wilmington, and fog on the river was a typical autumn occurrence. Maybe I'm lost in the fog of memory, but I seem to remember a mistiness in the air, a dank chill. Or perhaps that's the "pathetic fallacy," a literary device which depicts nature as a mirror for our moods (see the storm on the heath in King Lear ). In any event, in my recollection of that day, fog overlay the familiar landscape. On the day President Kennedy was killed, I was in the 5th grade at Edgemoor School -- but I wasn't in school that day. I have forgotten why not. I was not ill, since I was able to run errands with my mother. We were at the Merchandise Mart, a nearby shopping center, and Mom had taken me into the Bank of Delaware, where she wanted to check on an item in her safe-deposit box (we always called it the "safety-deposit box&q

Adsum

“Adsum,” which means “I am present,” is nearly the only Latin I remember from college and grad school. But it’s a phrase that’s often popped into my mind of late. Being there, being truly present to a situation, problem, or a moment of distress, is sometimes all we can do. At our house, we have had our share of Family Drama lately. No need to elaborate -- anyone with children, either small or grown, knows about Family Drama.  With adult children come situations beyond a parent's control. We sympathize (most of the time), we offer emotional support, we try to wait patiently until the crisis passes. We bite our tongues and sit on our hands. We live with uncertainty, and with the knowledge that there are no guarantees in life. Problems may not be resolved as we would have them resolve.  And now and then, they are not resolvable.  It is a hard fear to live with. At times, all we can do is be present and wait. Adsum. As a hospice volunteer with the frail elderly, I have learne