Blogs

• Mom's WWII Letters. In May 2017, I found my mother's stash of letters from 16 servicemen that she had corresponded with in 1944-1945. Most of the men were from her hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania, or from her college roommate's hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. Nearly all of the writers were now gone and could no longer offer information or explanations for what they had written. I began to trace the soldiers' family trees with one goal in mind: to return the letters in person to their children. Here you will hear some of the stories of the men, their experiences, and what their relatives have to say today.

• Me and Daddy:  Stories from the Birthday Pictures.  A memoir blog that includes a slideshow of our birthday photos, which you can also see here.  1958-1992 are currently posted; the rest will follow someday.  Refreshing the browser screen will re-start the show.  Clicking on a single photo will "choose" it and will provide years and more details.

 

• I contributed posts for The Roost, the blog of the Thoreau Farm: Birthplace of Henry David Thoreau, from 2012-2017.  Here are links to most of them:

  Eclipsing | Man versus Machine | Thoreau's Walden House, Pennsylvania Style | The Day(s) After | John Thoreau and the Rusted Edge | Join the Thoreau Bicentennial Celebration! | Civil Disobedience, December 19, 2016 | A(nother) Stamp for Henry| Let Him Step to the Music He Hears | Meet Larry Buell | One Honest Walk | Everybody Needs a Park, Part II: Encounters | Missing Tree | Mowing the Lawn, At a Cost | Aroma After Dark | The Breath of the Morning Bird | A Long-Ago Auction | Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs | The New Walden, Part Two | A New Version of Walden | Playing Snow-Storm Inspector | Thoreau in the Bookstore, Again | Meeting Thoreau at the Bookstore | Finding Thoreau in Suburbia | Under Leaf: Looking Closely | Two Gifts | Ferns and More | Henry and the Mouse | In Philadelphia | A Singing Bridge | Walking (Off Dinner) | Catch a Lightning Bug | The Magic of Baby Birds | The Yellow Flower "Not in Gray" | Feathers of a Bird | Leaving "Walden" Behind | Two Suburban Hawks | Cosmopolite Geese (plus swans) | The Resilience of Pines | Thoreau & Twain on Learning and Loss | Cold Fridays (or Other Days of the Week) | Noticing Nests | Modern-Day Disobedience | The Art of Spying a Woodpecker |  Once More to the Old Tree | Bluebird Birthday | A Thoreauvian Artist in Amsterdam |  An Old Book is a Joy Forever | Fall of Nuts: A Time for Squirrels | September Morn at Walden | Grab Those Number Twos! | Down Came a Spider | Return to Two-Boulder Hill | Henry's Children | A Good Walden is Hard to Find | Heat, Humidity & Henry (Or: In Touch with the Past, Part II) | Time of the Lilacs | All of the Crayons in the Box | A Visit to Two-Boulder Hill | On the Move | Edith's Story | Having Gall | Momma Tree | In Search of White-Headed Eagles | The Year of the Pigeon | What a Piece of Wonder a River Is, Part Two | Time is But a Stream: What a Piece of Wonder a River Is | Seasonal Switch | Transcendental Leaf Raking | Birds Who Winter With Us | Walden on Wheels | A Wider Universe | A Sleepy Hollow Morning | Two Ponds, or Two Henrys -- One Work? | March of the Woolly Bears | Hitchhiker -- A Leaf in the Carriage | Hidden Sashes | Goldfinches & Sunflowers | The Ripple Effect | MY Walden | The Sweet-Fern Squeeze | July 12, 2013 | Cabbage White Wander | Surprise in the Sky | Days of the Locusts | Beginnings: Thoreau at Commencement | Eyeing Crab Apples | Surprises | A Tale of Two Books | Being Quiet |(Red)wing of Spring | Sweetgum Clean-up ... Spring? |  What Henry Didn't See ... But Walter Did | Stop Look See Hawk | Henry's House ...s | Resolved:  Simplify, Simplify:  Easier Read than Done | Fledgling | Henry's Striped Squirrels | Stone Advice to Pilgrims:  Don't Forget the Rock | Look to the Skies