Authors

  • Joan Fontaine

    Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…

  • An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…

  • Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…

  • high heels

    Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

    Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

    Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…

  • stack of books

    Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

    Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…

  • Vincent Van Gogh; The Letters

    To Brother Theo: “I tell you again that I’ll always consider that you’re something other than a simple dealer in Corots, that through my intermediacy you have your part in the very production of certain canvases, which even in calamity retain their calm …”

  • “Horrible Things Happen;”Beneath the Surface of the BP Spill: What’s Happening Now, What’s Needed Next

    It seems that the human inability to grasp and execute the complex steps of a deepwater drilling procedure led to the tragic outcome. A separate discussion is warranted of an almost universal lack of preparedness by the industry and government to deal with the aftermath of this blowout.

  • Protesting Progressives

     The mood at the annual progressive conference meeting held in Washington DC June 7-9 can best be described as cautious pessimism. After the high two years ago of electing the first African-American President and a Democratic-controlled Congress, both…

  • Why Not Take the Slow Lane?

    I thought about the Kindle and the iPad, but I didn’t think about them long. I’m sure something better, that incorporates a bazillion features and will function like a personal computer, a telephone, a television, an e-book, and possibly a food-o-matic will soon be touted. When it arrives, I’ll think about it, slowly.

  • Bernanke Addresses Whether We Can We Sustain Moderate Growth

    The number of persons expected to be working and paying taxes into various programs is rising more slowly than the number of persons projected to receive benefits. Notably, this year about 5 individuals are between the ages of 20 and 64 for each person aged 65 or older. By the time most of the baby…

  • A Cable Calamity

    But until then, all would be rosy. Or so I thought — until Company Y’s installer showed up, dragging yards of dusty cable across my carpet and tripping over his baggy jeans which were hanging at half mast mid-paunch and puddling at his feet. Oh, well, I thought, he’s not a fashion model; he’s a…

  • Good Things Come in Threes: A Trio of Rosés – Two Sparkling, One Still

    Rosé season is in full bloom, and there are more rosés than ever to choose from. As the world changes so quickly and there are fewer and fewer constants to count on, I cherish reasonably priced wines that I can turn to year after year. Just as there are certain dishes I try to make…

  • Love Me, Love My Vote

    It’s an election year, and my popularity is at a all-time high! Not that I’m running for office myself, but if I were, it’s nice to know that I recently acquired a lot of friends in high places whom I’ve never actually met. Nevertheless, many of them have really been putting themselves out lately to…

  • Domino Effect

    What if I scan all those photographs, dump the film and originals to save space in my house, only to discover the technology of the future (probably being developed somewhere by a 12-year-old as you read this paragraph) would work better if I started from the irreplaceable articles I tossed in the garbage two weeks…

  • Harvard Med School Healthletter Advice to women about supplements — use selectively

    It’s an especially bad idea to take extra multivitamins in an effort to ramp up your intake of a single micronutrient. Doing so means you’re sure to get too much of other vitamins and/or minerals, which can be harmful.