Transportation Links

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…
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

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: 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
We Can Vote! An Appeal to the Women of the United States, 1871; ‘Suffrage for women is not yet a universal condition”

“In this country, which stands so specially on equal representation, it is hardly possible that the same equal suffrage would not be established by law if the matter were to be left merely to the progress of public sentiment and the ordinary course of legislation. But as we confidently believe, and as we have before…
Has Congress Ceded Its Authority to the President? The Fourteenth Amendment and The Greatest Gift: Inform Yourself and Vote

Fourteenth Amendment – All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any…
Jo Freeman’s Review of A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope and Innocence Lost

Jo Freeman reviews and writes: Race and war entwined during the riots. Most people have forgotten that the first riot of the decade was in Birmingham in 1963. They spread North in 1964, but it was the Watts riot of 1965 that really woke people up. The number of riots peaked in 1967 but didn’t…
Did You Remember that It Has Been Proposed That We Privatize the Postal Service? Who Is Handling These Dangerous Packages Now?

Now that our postal workers (and FBI and other law enforcement agencies) are on the front line protecting us from the transfer of potentially deadly packages across the US, this recent protest on the part of postal workers against the President’s attempt to privatize our postal system, seems even more relevant. “Our postal system is…
Flashback: Secretaries of the 1950s and 1960s: Would You Have What it Takes to be One at That Time?

Brooke’s Your Reflector Number I (Personality) Quiz from the Secretarial Training Program in Waco, Texas from January 1959 to June 1959: Do I smile readily and naturally? Do I avoid ‘bossing’ other people? Am I fastidious about my appearance at all times? Do I avoid gossipping? Do I refrain from showing off how much I…
An Immigration Conversation; Lady Liberty is Weeping

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Shortly before my mother died, friends were reminiscing about the happiest days of their lives. When they asked my Mom what hers was, they expected her to cite one of her carefree childhood days in Italy, her wedding day, or the day I graduated from Boston University, which they had often…
A ‘Hidden Figure’, Raye Jean Jordan Montague Designed a Frigate in 18 and a Half Hours

Among other posts, Raye Montague served as the program director for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Integrated Design, Manufacturing, and Maintenance Program as well as the division head for the Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) Program. On January 22, 1984, she accepted the newly created position of deputy program manager of the Navy’s…
Stateline: The Elections Are Coming and There’s a National Shortage of Poll Workers

One lesser-known problem that continues to local election officials is the national shortage of poll workers. They greet you at the plastic folding table set up in your neighborhood’s library, church or fire station, asking you for your name, address and, depending on your state, photo ID before handing you a ballot or directing you…
Another Turbulent Day on the Market: Three Reasons to Do Nothing

Our society values action. We enjoy “action movies”, we use “action verbs” on our resumes, and we praise active people. When we hear news, we think about what action to take. If we hear that the economy is booming, we want to take more investment risk. If a company announces record earnings, we want to…