The Factory Girl’s Song
Come all you weary factory girls I’ll have you understand I’m going to leave the factory And return to my native land. … The Overseers need not… Read more The Factory Girl’s Song →
Creak, Memory
My father made it to almost-98, sharp as a tack the whole time (as near as I can tell, all his very long-lived siblings did except for the youngest one, who had some sort of dementia in the last few years of her life). My mother died relatively young, but was reasonably sharp. However, my father’s mother (seen left) also had dementia for as long as I knew her (I was 14 when she died, and felt deeply swindled by fate, listening to all the stories about a Grannie Annie… Read more Creak, Memory →
Notice, Class, How Angela Circles…
I was once chased around my parents’ kitchen by a friend of my father’s. But I’ll come back to that. One of my favorite things to do when I was… Read more Notice, Class, How Angela Circles… →
Autre Temps
The photo below is from the Spring, 1957 issue of Bride and Home. The three players are me (in the vermillion romper), my mother (in the jumpsuit, in the middle,… Read more Autre Temps →
In Praise of Fanny Price
I have been doing one of my semi-regular Jane Austen re-reads. Every time I find new things: This time I was chagrinned to realize the extent to which certain film versions had overwritten Miss Austen’s original text in my mind–not necessarily to their detriment, but I was looking for a scene in Sense and Sensibility that turned out to be a clever Emma Thompson way of compacting a good deal of information. But the original Austen is still there on the page, and still smart and incisive and funny. So far I have… Read more In Praise of Fanny Price →
Gallantry
So I got into one of those conversations with an old, slightly older than I am, friend last week. Who has a hard time with the idea that unsolicited compliments from strangers on the street is a bad thing. “It’s nice. It’s… ” he searched for the word. “It’s gallantry.” I think that in his head this phrase called up visions of Camelot, and courtly love and deep bows over the hands of delicately scented ladies wearing satin and lace (I’m pretty certain those are the images… I’ve known him for a… Read more Gallantry →