Until two years ago, when someone said “zoom” I would recall the now-classic commercial, featuring a Mazda speeding over open roads. Watching the car from the side was ten - year- old Micah Kanters in shirt and tie, who turned to the camera and whispered “Zoom-zoom!” It became a media sensation and sold a ton of Mazdas. In the Summer of 2020 during the isolation…
Congratulations….I think. It’s been one full year since we first became aware that life might not be the same for a while. 2020 started out really great. On Friday, Jan. 31, my husband and I went to a preview party at the Brandywine River Museum. We stood around with our cocktails, mingling with hundreds of people viewing exhibits commemorating the centennial of women’s right to…
It was sometime around mid-March of this year. It seems like an eternity ago. I was well into what I call my “COVID Freak-Out Period.” And after my first 6 a.m. trip to the Giant wondered if I’d have to resort to paper napkins or paper towels for — you know — toilet paper. It was about that time my sister received a viral YouTube…
As children, my sister and I used to tease our father. Even though he was now a successful patent attorney, he was still the child of German immigrants, who grew up during the dust bowl and depression days in North Dakota. After breakfast, if his paper napkin was still more or less clean, he would fold it and put it in his pocket. Often that…
Many people of a certain age are familiar with the facts of the evening of Sept. 20, 1973. A single-engine Beechcraft E18S took off from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in La., failed to clear a tree at the end of the runway and crashed, killing all six aboard. One of them was famed singer-songwriter, Jim Croce. He was 30 years old. His album “You Don’t…
If I told you that the creator of the Moon Walk was buried in Rolling Green Memorial Park in West Chester, some of you younger readers might be quick to point out, “Hey- Michael Jackson’s buried in Los Angeles.” But the smooth backwards dance move is in fact 90 years old. I started out to write about Pearl Bailey, the internationally famous African-American actress and…
When I was in high school, my sister and I would run home from the bus stop, throw our books down on the kitchen table and dash into the den to watch “Dark Shadows,” a soap opera about Barnabas Collins, a tormented vampire roaming the docks of 1795 Collinsport, Maine, looking for his next victim while seeking the face of his lost love Josette, and…
I had two grandmothers. One quietly entertained my sister and me with tea parties, taught us German, to sew, to color inside the lines and to write in neat cursive. The other laughed out loud, feared nothing, wore slacks in the 1950s, and taught my country mouse sister and me to ride Washington, D.C.’s buses by ourselves. Tuesday evening, I had the pleasure to see…
You know those days you wake up and think, “How did the world pass by without my noticing?” I went to Strafford Elementary School in the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District, and now that I think about it, in those days there were still a few dinosaurs grazing outside the playground. On the first day of third grade, Miss Dewees handed out school pencils, little scissors, wood…
I recently had one of those frightening moments when I realized that once again, I’m way behind the cutting edge of trending. It’s been happening more and more. You see, I was quietly watching a new commercial on TV and here’s this lady in a luxuriously comfy setting in a gorgeous kimono style robe eating a Fiber One Brownie Bite and talking about how she…
This summer, we decided it was time to have a three-seasons room added to the back of our house where the original screened-in porch had been. Going online, I found a top-rated company, three brothers in Lancaster County. We exchanged emails and set up an initial meeting with Michael. The next day I answered the door. There stood a tall, slim young man. His hair,…