John Malone

  • 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…

  • Excerpt from Tinkers, Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

    But he was nearly a ghost, almost made of nothing, and so the wood and metal and sheaves of brightly printed cardboard and paper (MOVE FORWARD SIX SPACES TO EASY STREET! Great-Grammy Noddin, shawled and stiff and frowning at the camera, absurd with her hat that looked like a sailor’s funeral mound, heaped with flowers…

  • Our Intertwined Lives

    I asked him if he was disappointed that I wasn’t a son. He looked at me surprised and said, “You are the best son I never had … and a wonderful daughter.”

  • Shopping for Gifts and Yourself: Cartographic Art

    Put aside ideas for an oversize, expensive bag, backpack or briefcase; we’ve found a good looking, authentic alternative: a cartographic

  • Allergy triggers are worsening as a result of climate change

    State “Hotspots” at risk of high increases in allergenic tree pollen: Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia. State Hotspots at risk of moderate increases in allergenic tree pollen: Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

  • Pew Researches: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor

    The Democrats can take some solace in the fact that neither party can be confident that they have the advantage among such a disillusioned electorate. The Tea Party movement, which has a small but fervent anti-government constituency, could be a wild card in this election.

  • Joanna Grossman, If Sandra Bullock Divorces Jesse James What Rights or Privileges Will She Have With Respect to His Young Daughter Sunny, Whom She Has Helped Raise?

    While we rarely address ‘celebrity’ subjects on SeniorWomen.com, we did find Joanna Grossman’s article about the future role Sandra Bullock could play in her stepdaughter’s life interesting because of its complex legal relationship questions.

  • Presidential Memorandum – Hospital Visitation

    It should be made clear that designated visitors, including individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies), should enjoy visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those that immediate family members enjoy. You should also provide that participating hospitals may not deny visitation privileges on…

  • Elsie de Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste

    I once saw a little serving-maid wearing a calico gown, black crosses on a white ground, and I was so enchanted with the cool crispness of it that I had a glazed wall paper made in the same design. I have used it in bedrooms, and in bathrooms, always with admirable effect. One can imagine…

  • Alabama Machiavelli, Review of Stealth Reconstruction: An Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History

    Machiavelli was a high-level bureaucrat in the Florentine Republic, not an elected official in a democracy, but he did write about how to get and keep political power. His basic advice was to appear to do one thing while obscuring the fact that you are really doing something else.

  • Lifelong Pursuits: The Rickrack Chronicles

    Sewing is an avocation that gives a surprising amount of sensate pleasure. The aroma of a fabric store or department, a combination of sizing and fibers, is like the scent of spring — it makes a stitcher happy, gives her energy, and opens her wallet.