If my character Gerty, who appears in so many of my drawings, were real, I’d want her to be my long-time next-door neighbor. She would become my friend and sometime confidante, reliable, but not stodgy. She’d elicit uncontrollable laughter with … Continue reading Remembering Our Last Cat
For the ULCC Writers Group She slept in their old wedding bed, now that her parents preferred twin beds. Her bedroom’s dim light played with a floral wallpaper pattern on the wall facing her bed; she imagined little devil heads shaking and winking at her. Shades darkening her room skimmed the bottom of windows that faced the backyard. A large black and yellow poster was attached to her bedroom door—“Keep Out! Quarantine!” it warned. Mostly she slept, waking occasionally to the feel of a cold washcloth or an icepack on her forehead. Her mother urged her to lie quietly, … Continue reading Applesauce
In 1952, after the fifth attempted burglary of our house on 50th Street in Chicago, my parents decided to buy a lot on the North Shore and build a new home. Before that work could begin, they organized lawsuits with other prospective lot buyers to break a restrictive covenant governing all the empty lots on a recently divided family estate. Until the covenant became illegal, the owner would not sell real property to Blacks, Jews, or Asians. Almost as a celebration of their victory over prejudice, they built a ranch house on a wooded, half-acre lot on a private lane … Continue reading Salad and the Hotpoint Kitchen
Paris resides in my core as a frame of mind, a feeling, regardless of its physical changes over the many years I have been visiting it. Continue reading Autumn is Spring
Nan was what some call “a good soul.” Conversations with Nan were like an interview with Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised on Mars by Martians who came to Earth and changed the course of humanity: Nan grokked. She always listened intently to her partner in conversation and seemed to understand immediately and intuitively the other person’s point of view. The term “grok” and the character Smith come from Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 work Stranger in a Strange Land, a novel I read in that decade and never forgot. In the 1980’s, Nan and I became friends when we both … Continue reading Nan
You found a pearl in your oyster, a variety of experience as expressed at its core, through language. Continue reading The World is My Oyster
“You can say stuff to a puppet that you wouldn’t say to anyone else.” Continue reading The Puppet Remedy
It was show time at PotPourri, an opportunity for anyone with the desire or need to perform. Continue reading Do It Anyway
When did I begin to worry more about my shoes than my fun? Continue reading Dancing in the Rain
My readers will know how often I have mentioned the impact of my third college year in the Toscana region of Italy, principally in Siena and Firenze. Most pieces drew on my acquaintance with the Vivante family at Villa Solaia near Siena or my Florentine host family, the Chellinis. I rarely mentioned a regular guest at the Chellini’s Sunday dinners, Gustavo’s son Roberto. Then in his mid-twenties and as yet not married, he shared his passion for good food, wine, and cigars whenever he could dominate the table talk. We American ‘paying guests’ enjoyed his conversation and argued with him … Continue reading Passing of Memory’s People
Susan Bass Marcus Writes 