Jeanne Asher

  • 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…

  • Read or Listen?

    I have a subconscious distrust of the spoken word — or maybe that might be explained by too many decades of listening to political speeches. I’m convinced that I can read aloud. I can’t find anyone who wants to listen to what I’d like to read, and second, I’m beginning to think I’ll never find…

  • Join In A Worldwide Beach Project, Preserve Memories at Gulf Beaches

    The present oil leak situation in the US brings to the fore the need to preserve and treasure beaches around the world. The Victoria and Albert Museum is carrying a beach art project on their website that you might want to join in and take pictures of.

  • A Misleading Email FactChecked

    Q: Did Congress slip a $150 to $250 monthly tax into the new health care law to pay for home care for the elderly? A: No. The new CLASS Act program is voluntary. Premiums are estimated to be $123 per month for workers who choose to participate. It…

  • The Gift of the Kilt

    One evening, leaving Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, having seen the amazing library, the stunning collection of armoury, the peacocks on the lawns, we headed for our destination for the night, the magical Trossachs hotel, but the coach driver, unfamiliar with this particular trip, took a wrong turning and we completely lost our…

  • How the Repeal of Affordable Care Act Would Affect Asthma, Diabetes and High Blood Pressure Health Coverage

    The Center for American Progress, has created a state-by-state map of the states that would lose health provisions if the Affordable Care Act was repealed; their article,Health Reform Helps Millions with Chronic Conditions by Sonia Sekhar follows: Heal…

  • My Mother’s Cookbook; More Cookies

    When I returned to college after a spring vacation spent in my home town, a girl I knew from New York’s Westchester County asked if I’d had a good time. I gave her my usual response, saying that I’d had fun. She wondered what could be fun about spending spring break in Iowa.

  • Shop for Home and Gifts at Tabula Tua

    We were taken by the dog bone frame, the geography glasses by Catstudio

  • The Pastor’s Son, a Chapter from Medicine in Translation by Danielle Ofri:

    “When he could marshal some grains of his spirit, he trawled the web for plastic surgeons, hoping someone might offer the medical care he needed. Most days he simply drew the blankets over his head … They ended their relationship by mutual agreement, but he knew she just needed a graceful way out”

  • Xeno-Canto; Sharing Bird Songs From Around the World And Investigating a Victorian Ornithological Adornment

    A birding walk on the Filoli estate in Woodside, California a few years ago and inspiration from an unknown warbler some weeks ago in our backyard, led us to list a new site which, regardless of your attachment to birding, might of be of interest to all who hear a song and wonder about the…

  • Helen Thomas Reminds Us Of Freedom Of Thought

    It was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who served on the US Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932 who held up freedom of thought as one of the prime protections offered to citizens in the US Constitution. He explained that he believed that this protection was most valuable “not free thought for those who agree with…