Tag: nostalgia

Tiny Tuesday!

April 18, the anniversary of my father’s death, never gets past me. I always remember both of my parents’ birth dates on the day of, but most years, I overlook the date that my mother died until sometime after the fact. I think because that anniversary is on the first day of the month (June 1), and I rarely notice month changes in general. I do remember infinite details about both those days, in 1985 and 2008, but I agree with the concept that time is a great healer; even the saddest memories are much softer and always tempered by the better ones.


Because it’s Tiny Tuesday, I woke up with the idea of sharing this lacquer cigarette box, a gift to my father from the chief of police where he was last deployed in Korea before he retired. It’s been packed away for a while, and I’ve decided to display it with my other boxes.


A look inside. On the left is a compartment for holding a pack of cigarettes, maybe even some of the smaller cigar brands. That’s a cigarette lighter with a University of Alabama emblem I was given when I was in college, and since Daddy and I both graduated from there, this seems like a good place for it. On the right is an ashtray in pristine condition, so I know it was never used.


Inside the top is hand lettering to show the names of the giver and my father.

I wish one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren would want this memento, but to date, none of them seem to have my sentimental (possible hoarding?) tendency. But as long as I’m around, this piece of my father’s history has a home.

…but I’m running behind

Trying to play catch-up, but it’s not working so well for me. I have been writing among all the other things, and over the last couple of days, here’s what I’ve heard or what I’m in the middle of.


1960s and ’70s heartthrob Mark Lindsay’s 2-CD set that along with extras, offers his three solo albums Arizona, Silver Bird, and You’ve Got A Friend; Linkin Park, Minutes to Midnight; Kenny Loggins, Nightwatch; and Little Feat, Waiting For Columbus.


Halfway into these three CDs (signed because I went to a benefit house concert where he played back in 2016): Hamilton Loomis, Ain’t Just Temporary; Give It Back; and Live In England.


I’m sure I had a good time, but I’m equally sure I was tired. =)

Tiny Tuesday!


Another tiny box came to us at Christmas, this one from Tom’s parents. It contained a USB flash drive of 1700 photos and documents related to their family history. I can only imagine how daunting it was for the two of them to take on that project: going through photos, reading documents and letters, and scanning/cropping all their choices.

I can’t even manage to get my solo stuff organized, and I also have many things relating to my parents and our family genealogies. I did get my parents’ home movies onto VHS tapes for everyone once (siblings, nephews, nieces, sister-in-law), and I have no idea if anyone watched or kept them. And now the original films are gone, and we need to find someone who can move our lone tape to something more tech-updated, if the VHS will even play.

Tom has saved all his family material to his computer, and I hope he and his siblings, who received their own flash drives, enjoy journeying through their family’s near and distant past.

Between the worlds of men and make believe…

I’m having a lovely, quiet Saturday. I had a photo ready for my Instagram World Series skeleton post, and we’ll be watching the game tonight. Part of the fun of that is how out of character watching and enjoying baseball is for me–and how it would surprise the men of my past who loved this game I wanted nothing to do with.

This morning into afternoon, I’ve been writing and, on writing breaks, coloring, and through it all, listening to the four CDs that are part of a Dan Fogelberg collection. This music takes me to so many past times and relationships that make me feel good when I think of them. I suspect it’s because not a single one of the men I loved or who broke my heart, or any who tried to shape, change, or control me, are connected in any way to Dan Fogelberg. I know there was a friend who also loved his music and with whom I used to talk about him. It could have been another Becky who was a year behind me in high school but really became my friend a few years later. I held her in high esteem, and she was a good confidante and advisor to me many times. I also shared his music with my mother because she loved his song “Run For the Roses” so much. It was on the slideshow CD I made to play at the gathering after her memorial service.

The title of this post is from Dan Fogelberg’s song “Scarecrow’s Dream,” which I’ve always said is the song that describes my life and who I am.

Saturdays…

Teenage me. Still have that bookcase on the left side of the photo. Still have that footlocker I’m sitting on. Still have one of the mushrooms on that bookcase on the right, and most of the books that I recognize. Of course I still have Dr. Neil, my Teddy bear. Photo by Lynne.

Not sure what your Saturdays were like as a teen, but especially in my early teens (i.e., before the driver’s license years), after I got up and did whatever it was my mother had on her agenda (housekeeping things, so I’d dust or clean a bathroom, or whatever), my late mornings and afternoons were mine. Sometimes I went walking in the woods. If I was lucky, Lynne had spent the night, and we’d hang out talking about everything, including our characters, and maybe doing crafty stuff like collages, and records would always be on my record player.

If I was alone, I’d read, and if I didn’t feel like reading, I’d lie on my bed and listen to albums start to finish in the order that they were intended to be heard.

That’s what I’m doing today, though it’s with CDs and an old boom box. I’m not thinking about all the things I should do (they are always plentiful). I’m not multitasking. I have on a particular box set I got last year, which I’ve listened to, but this time, I’m doing nothing else. Just lying on the bed in the sanctuary (where so much of my youth and youthful interests surround me), occasionally looking up lyrics on my phone so I can sing along, and just absorbing music.

It’s a form of self-care, giving yourself permission to act like you’re young and don’t have a million worries and responsibilities. Also, when you sing, really sing along, it’s good for your lungs. You breathe out more than you breathe in. It clears you physically and spiritually. I’ve been prescribed breathing treatments, and I’m doing them, though they leave me crazy jittery. However, singing-along breathing is good, too. Go ahead: Google “Is singing good for your lungs?” and find the many answers, oh ye who like to do your own research.

Happy Saturday.

Button Sunday


Today is National Name Your Car Day. I don’t know if I’ve named all the cars I’ve owned or driven, but I have named a few. When I went looking for a button to match the day, I saw this one and was reminded of the car the man who would become my first husband took to college.

I used that photo when I talked about the car on here before, and when I did, Mark mentioned that he’d like to see a particular photo I remembered taking of the car from my 11th floor dorm room window.

It has taken me over two years to scan the photo, but here it is.

The cars may seem closer than eleven stories away. On the left of the photo, you can catch a glimpse of floors of one of the other wings. The Boyfriend had come over that morning to give me two roses in honor of our two years as a couple (beginning our junior year of high school), and I watched from the window later as he walked back to his car–snapping this shot. There’s a white car next to the bottom rose, then a green car, and behind that is his orange Bug.


Here’s a photo I took of the dorm (Tutwiler Hall) in 2014 when I visited Tuscaloosa. You can see that it has three different wings extending from its center core. In researching to learn more about the building, I discovered that it was imploded in July of this year, when it was determined that it would be less expensive to construct a new residence hall than to update and renovate this one. I had no idea. I had some great times in that dorm my freshman year, and of the friends I made there, two remain beloved people in my life.

There’s a lot of information on this page about the dorm’s history and the woman for whom it was named, Julia Tutwiler.

Grease is the word


I don’t know if I’ve shown this house or told this story before on here, but I’m old enough now for people to expect me to repeat myself, so whatever.

Here’s the setup. This was an old house on a shady street in Tuscaloosa that I shared with two roommates who were sisters. The door went into an entryway where I set up a desk with a couple of chairs and held office hours with my students. Right off the office were stairs going to the second floor, and next to those, the room with the double windows was my bedroom. The rest of the downstairs was a separate apartment, with beautiful glass doors locked between the apartment where two guys lived and our part of the house. I don’t remember if we ever opened those doors or just went around to the other entrances, but we hung out with them and they with us, and we all went to each other’s parties.

On the second floor, which was all ours, the sisters each had a bedroom, and there was a large living room, a bathroom, and the kitchen. Off one corner of the kitchen was a sort of trunk room that we could use to store extra furniture, our luggage, and put bikes or whatever if we had them. Closest to that little room was our stove.

Both the sisters had a tendency to peel and slice potatoes and make French fries at all hours of the day and night. (Typical for late-night studying.) The younger sister liked to take tortillas, quarter them, and fry them so that they puffed up. She’d then sprinkle them with powdered sugar, and she called them “fake beignets.” (Here are real beignets; I don’t have a photo of the fake beignets.)

Since they had something greasy going a lot, they just kept one of my iron skillets, filled halfway with cooking oil, on the (cold) stovetop all the time. Me being older and more cautious, I often told them this was a bad idea. The air is full of things: dishwashing detergent bubbles, our exhaled breath, sneeze droplets–need I go on? At the very least, I said, they should put a lid on the skillet. But they shrugged off my suggestion, and so it goes.

One afternoon, I was sitting at the kitchen table, probably writing a paper for one of my graduate classes. I kept hearing this little noise, but no one else was in the house, so I ignored it. It was just by chance that I looked up and across the kitchen, which is when I realized what the noise was. A little mouse was perched on the edge of the skillet and leaning over to lap up grease. What I’d been hearing was his little tongue hard at work drinking the grease of potatoes and dough. After I sucked in air, I stood, and like a flash he was down the stove and slipping under the door to the trunk room.

I disposed of the grease and scrubbed that skillet for who knows how long, and after that, we co-eixsted with our non-paying resident, but the Grease Skillet Bar was permanently closed to him.