A WoodyAllen Movie, Oy Vey! (Short Story) - 2/3/2024 12:09:50 PM
One would have to be a therapist to listen to some one's problems. But I have and not given any advice other than straightforward logic that those in a mental state probably can't understand, anyway. I guess that's why therapists turn to prescribing drugs.
It looks like you had your own problems to deal with, and were in no condition to help anyone else.
Ron
The Bravest Thing I've Ever Done (Short Story) - 10/17/2020 4:05:12 AM
Bradley knew what you wanted from the outset. Glad you have thrived on your own terms.
The Bravest Thing I've Ever Done (Short Story) - 10/14/2020 2:09:20 PM
Your English major shows in your writing. But your lifestyle is a bit foreign to me. Although I spent three years in California and might have acquired some of that hundred-year-old gold, I always sought a simpler life and am giving away most of what I have, largely because I have no children to give it to.
As far as the divorce goes, they always financially devastating. And children are often affected for the rest of their lives. Your marriage looks like the type of marriage for all the wrong reasons. But I'm glad you did have a career of your own and not just be totally dependent on your husband. I married late in life and it didn't last. Made sure that It did not hurt either of us too much.
Ron
The Bravest Thing I've Ever Done (Short Story) - 10/14/2020 1:18:06 PM
wow, that is one amazing story, and I can feel the strength of your beautiful loyal heart. I believe I would have done the same, Your an excellent writer, and I thorough enjoyed your story. Thank you.
The Biblical Cord that Pulls and Keeps me Going (Article) - 10/9/2025 2:38:35 PM
Wow, you were very dedicated like so many single moms! I did not have children. I spent my life as a community activist, organizing neighborhoods to save a park, doing union organizing so women could earn a better living, organizing tenants to fight outrageous high rents. Now I'm active on environmental issues. These are the things that keep me going. But as I age I face those challenges we all face: body getting weaker, mind getting a little fuzzy, vision changing. We're in it to the end and won't stop until we're stopped by nature herself.
MNo Turning Back Lightening has struck and I’m fried to the core, peeling N (Article) - 8/2/2025 2:48:11 PM
Well, get writing! I'm curious about this book you speak of. Ed Phillips is a great guy. He's helped me understand the crazy economy that we live in. I had a Reader from ADen tell me I should write a sequel to my Mystery of Quercus Gardens. That got me thinking. I had such fun writing that book. Doing another could be worthwhile. Last time we "spoke" you were eager to give gifts -- writing is certainly a gift! Writing as you did for your friend Andre or writing your book--writing is a gift every way you look at it.
Do We Give to Take? (Article) - 7/29/2025 12:55:19 PM
Thanks for the thought-provoking essay about giving. At the age of 74, I love giving things away. Over the years, I've accumulated too much. Now to give it up! Especially things of value and usefulness. But I do shy away from receiving gifts. I really don't need gifts and I begin to wonder if there are "strings" attached. If I feel obligated to be friendly, I take then, give the gift to someone else!
Bury Me Laughing, Already! (Article) - 7/26/2025 12:36:54 PM
Good for you! I'm 74 and looking forward to that same kind of boost. Maybe? Like you, I eat healthy, but I don't do any running, just long walks, some yoga. Used to Kayak and ride horses. Good to polish up on your French, I should do that too. And my Spanish! At some point it seems we should just toss all worry aside and go for it!
Camelot Then, Camelot Now (Article) - 2/2/2024 4:31:48 PM
You forgot to post the photos of you in a bikini.
Camelot Then, Camelot Now (Article) - 2/2/2024 3:23:39 PM
What an amazing experience and coincidence for this detailed account of a period in your life when everything was going well but had to end because your ideal man could never be what you fully wanted him to be.
I had three mad years in northern California 1966-69. I even got to the ski slopes where everyone was paring off except with me. Fortunately, I roomed with a young Dutch guy who was an expert skier and kept me alive on the same slope that Sonny Bono died while I fell many times and he came to my rescue and put my skis back on for me to go breakneck straight down the slopes again. So I have tasted a little bit of what you are describing so well.
Every time I returned to California, it felt like going home.
My younger twin brothers have been married three times. Their first wives gave them their children but grew uninteresting and lost what little beauty they had. Their second wives were strikingly beautiful and had beautiful children. But both of those marriages ended very badly with both of my brothers hurt greatly by what happened. Their third marriages are to hard-working women who don't have the natural beauty but have become the best wives my brothers have ever had.
Ron
The Body Parts! (Article) - 6/8/2022 11:51:00 AM
From your article, I can see you have great respect for your body parts. Did you say, "four before and four after," and mean, two before and two after." My sister had that. My twin brother and I five years before, and my younger twin brothers, eleven years later. She babysat for them. After losing 80 pounds through a every other day fasting, she has taken up long walks after a lifetime of not being athletic at all.
My partner had three older brothers, followed by five younger brothers. Her sister, 10 years older, married at 15 and left the household, so she had to become "little mama" to her younger brothers, and then take care of her mother who had a stroke, for eight years. She loves to walk and practically dances when she does. In her 50s, she took up swimming, and regularly does 10 laps at her gym. She is still young, so I'm glad that all her body parts are still functioning very well, despite a slipped disc she hasn't had taken care of, yet.
Thanks to leaving strenuous exercise behind when I got in a wheelchair in 1995, without wear and tear like marathons except on my exercise machine, my body parts are holding up quite nicely.
Ron
Lets Hear It For the Boys! (Article) - 5/1/2021 2:01:49 PM
I too wore short hair when young and dressed in pants and t-shirts. My brothers and I climbed trees, gathered "night-crawlers" for fishing, rode bikes "look mom, no hands," rode horses, climbed up the rafters of a 100-year-old barn just to jump down into the old hay. After marrying, my husband and I went kayaking, hiking and camping in bear country. Looking at this, I think I should write women's adventure stories!
What is Writing All About, Anyway? (Article) - 5/1/2021 1:48:51 PM
I recently posted an article that Writing is a Gift that Keeps on Giving. Yes, it is therapy, it is self-expression, it is the joy of creativity and more. I've self-published 4 novels and though I do some pushing and "advertising" I'm not worried about whether they sell thousands of copies. I look at them and see accomplishment. There were other authors who regretted publication: Harper Lee, who did everything the publisher wanted her to do, and so they made her book, To Kill a Mocking Bird, a Pulitzer prize winner. Gone With the Wind by Margret Mitchell was supposed to be a criticism of Southern attitudes, but Southerners made her book a success because they liked and identified with those hateful characters of Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara. Mitchell never wrote another novel. I say, let me enjoy my writing and not have it sullied by big corporate publishers who search for huge profits!
What is Writing All About, Anyway? (Article) - 4/29/2021 10:38:46 AM
Thank you for a detailed account of you, as a writer. And kudos for knowing how to maintain your health through diet and exercise because that is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
After being terribly injured in surgery when I was 20, I changed my diet and make sure that I exercised the muscles I had left. Through mere spinal cord neuron aging I have lost the ability to walk after 30 years of passing for near-normal and now have 28 years with my tush firmly anchored to my electric wheelchair with little ability to exercise, except my mind and a machine that pedals my legs and arms and about 15 mph in my kitchen overlooking my deck, flowers, birds, insects, geckos and animals.
I have three years on you and find the last three to be some of the hardest. But I am the oldest quadriplegic I know and still healthy.
I first discovered Oxford from that good old boy country singer, football quarterback, Chris Kristofferson. But I did get a fellowship to Stanford right at the Summer of Love, making my studies not as dedicated as I would have liked. I too, spent my career writing for others and, while I started the book of my hitchhiking fellow travelers in 1971, I didn't start writing books until my autobiography in 1992 that I didn't finish until 2014.
I write for the pure pleasure of writing and storytelling. It enriches my otherwise ratherRoutine existence.
Ron
Lets Hear It For the Boys! (Article) - 4/28/2021 9:57:31 AM
Thank you for telling us what makes a woman viable in a man's world. Over the years I've watched a few women rise to fame, including one become our university president by being very appealing to every man she tucked under her wings, including me… "Will you dance with me?" At her big, annual Christmas party.
My sister is five years younger, so she didn't have the close connection that you had, and she usually found physical activity with us, my twin brother and I, too rough. And then, 11 years after she was born, my younger twin brothers came along. During their preschool years, she was always a surrogate mother for them while mom worked. So, although our family structure was like yours, including the way our parents encouraged us, we didn't end up the same. In fact, she lately has become part of a political cult that distances her thinking from mine. And that's a real shame.
Ron
Lets Hear It For the Boys! (Article) - 4/27/2021 9:10:15 PM
Let's hear it for Mary! A well-written and expressed personal sentiment. As a brother myself, I hope my own sister would feel the same way. Thanks, Mary, for sharing.
2021 Possible Personal Growth During Pandemic? (Article) - 3/19/2021 4:32:20 AM
Hi Mary: This is a super article written with us in mind. It is so well-expressed. I got my first Covid-19 shot last week. The line of cars was at least a mile long. I listened to classical music all the while and never complained once. Take care. I will be tracking your postings like a bloodhound in search of things pure, simple, and wonderful. --Ed
Why 94-Year-Old Johnny Keeps Marching on to the Polls in 2020 (Article) - 11/2/2020 1:21:14 AM
Thanks, Mary, for this beautiful, touching poetic tribute to Johnny and others like him. I recently buried my 94-year old brother, also a combat veteran of WWII. I also voted with similar feelings as I stood in line about an hour and a half. Just as I reached to entrance to the polling building, my back and legs gave out, and I had to sit down on a bench that conveniently popped up for that purpose. Back to my brother: I delivered the best eulogy I could for him, noted by his courage to refuse to die a prisoner at the hands of the Germans. At a most propitious moment, he and his buddy, darted from their captors, and sprinted 10 miles to rejoin their outfit. He and his beautiful wife were later blessed with 8 children over the next 74 years. I had the pleasure of telling a room full of their children and grandchildren about his heroics, and why they had a duty to carry on the tradition set so well for them by their mom and dad.
Why 94-Year-Old Johnny Keeps Marching on to the Polls in 2020 (Article) - 10/26/2020 11:39:12 AM
I voted using the mail in ballot for the very first time. It went smoothly. Two years ago when I voted I went to the polls and found that I could barely operate the plastic voting machines that had served me so many years. This year, the lines were very long and I know I would've had to have somebody help me with the machine, so having my caregiver mark the spaces worked well with me.
Johnny certainly can be a proud that he is still able to walk all the way to the polls and vote, like you do, with thoughts of those who died for us to have this privilege. I don't think of those he died. Of my three uncles who served, two of them came home to divorce and PTSD that eventually ruined their lives. Surviving for those was probably harder than having given their lives heroically. I hope that in the future, no one will ever have to think that voting requires citizens to give their lives to have it.
Ron
When do We Know That We Know? (Article) - 10/18/2020 11:25:37 AM
I drink a glass of wine with my evening meal and have for many years without a single headache. But if I do go further for any reason, the headache will occur… Hopefully while sleeping.
As far as what I know. I certainly did not end up arriving I was going prior to 20. But just after that, at 21, I charted the best life I could arriving here, better than I thought I would. Still trying to make it peacefully to the end.
Ron
Here I Sit (Poetry) - 6/14/2022 2:13:35 PM
I can relate to this one as in my senior years I now feel that I am still bright and perky although my kids and friends insist I am old and need to slow down...I tell them I will slow down when I die. Keep glowing yellow my friend and reaching for the sun while sipping the rain.
Fee
