LILACS AND SUNSETS When my mother, Nancy Ray, was a little girl, there were lilac bushes all around her house. Each house where my parents lived while I was growing up had at least one lilac bush! As mother aged, she developed macular degeneration which seriously affected her vision. As the disease progressed, whenever she […]
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AUTHOR SUNDAY – Comegys House in Maryland was a rare example of Dutch architecture
COMEGYS HOUSE Built 1708 Commanding a splendid view of the upper Chester River and the surrounding country, this rare example of Dutch architecture was the home of Dr. F. N. Sheppard and his wife. Mrs. Sheppard is a descendant of Alethia. daughter of the William Comegys who built the house and who was the second […]
AUTHOR SUNDAY – Do we still have cake walks at schools?
The Cake Walk by Jean Butterworth Each year there are many charitable groups to ask for pledges from the generous hearts of the public to support their charity events. Most people have their favorite charity and even add a few each year. Response comes from receiving mail outs, radio advertisement, and TV ads and by […]
DYK: He was taken back by the site
Did you know that “Taken back” is a nautical term. If the wind suddenly changed direction a sailing ship stopped moving forward. It was ‘taken aback’, which was a bit of a shock for the sailors. VINEGAR OF THE FOUR THIEVES: Recipes & curious tips from the past See best-selling books by Donna R […]
AUTHOR SUNDAY – My Viet Nam Experience
I left my young wife and year old daughter in the states after a harried move from Germany and a quick wedding ceremony of a pair of college friends and processed through Ft Lewis Washington. I arrived in RVN in time for our personnel replacement center to react to rockets’ red glare. There we were all five […]
DYK: Why do we tell performers to break a leg before they perform?
DID YOU KNOW that “break a leg” comes from the superstitious age. It was once thought that jealous forces, always present, are only too anxious to spoil any venture so people looked for ways to divert the jealous forces. It was thought that a good luck wish would alert and provoke them to do their […]
DYK: It’s a shambles – what does it mean?
A shamble was a bench where butchers used to set to sell meat from. In time the street where meat was sold often became known as the Shambles. (This street name survives in many towns today). However because butchers used to throw offal into the street, shambles came to mean a mess or something very […]
AUTHOR SUNDAY: This is funny but so very true – why do we feel we must keep so much?
MOVIN STUFF By Joyce Ray Wheeler It is a truism that moving from one place to another is never an easy thing. But when you’ve lived in the same home for 40 years, and when you are changing from a bigger space to a much smaller space, and when you and your spouse are both […]
DYK: Bites the Dust comes from Ancient Greece
The phrase BITES THE DUST – comes from Ancient Greece This phrase comes from a translation of the epic Ancient Greek poem the Illiad about the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. It was poetic way of describing the death of a warrior. REVIEWS: The exhilarating action & subplots keep the reader in constant […]
AUTHOR SUNDAY – Do you remember the book mobile?
Do you remember the book mobile? by Dorothy Graham Gast The Christmas I was ten, I asked for and received a 10 book set of reading classics. It had Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Black Beauty,Little Women, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Tale of Two Cities, Call of the Wild, Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, and Treasure Island. I read and reread these and finally began to […]