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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…
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…
Book Review: Women Making America

Jo Freeman reviews Women Making America, covering women’s history from the Revolution to the present day. Chock full of colorful images, it swoops high and low, sometimes mapping the forest and sometimes looking at a tree.
The Green-Eyed Monster as Constant Companion

Julia Sneden writes: "Perhaps it’s human nature to look around and wish for something you don’t have. The alternative would lend to a kind of smugness that is at the very least unattractive, and at the most, would lead to a kind of stasis. If th…
Sightings, Victory Gardens

Tam Gray writes: "Tennis Ball lettuce, Moon and Stars watermelon and Telephone peas in 1943; Ernest’s garden in Garden City, LI; the First Lady’s kale, shallots and fennel and a culinary historian’s theory, ""The more democratic our Pre…
L’Antico, the Sicilian Confucius

Rose Mula writes, "No one who has ever heard it can forget the poignant, Passau du tempu ca Berta filava, or "The time for Bertha to weave is ended,” roughly equivalent to “Make hay while the sun shines,” but probably means that synthetic fib…
Europeana: Think Culture

The Europeana website was so overwhelmed by viewers wanting to connect with this site, that it crashed last November. Finally, it is (almost) ready for prime time. Actually, it won’t be until 2010 that it will be officially a complete site. Here’s what…
Alaska: “You don’t land at the end of the road without a reason”

Kristin Nord writes: Drifters, gamblers, adventurers, dreamers and an astonishing roster of wildlife. This is the last great frontier, to a great extent, and it lives up to that billing with its unfolding stories.
CultureWatch, March 2009

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry should appeal to all readers of literary fiction; Roseanne McNulty’s story becomes an alternative, secret, history of Ireland. Henry Alford is witty and literate, but somehow he has allowed his talents to be diff…
Hydrate Skin to Soothe Winter Itch

Dermatologist Cynthia Bailey begins a quarterly column: If you give the skin a little extra attention in the winter and employ some simple tips, it will be as soft and hydrated as it is during the warmer and more humid weather of summer
Interesting Garden Shopping Web Sites

Please refer to Linda Coyner’s articles for many more links Blue Poppy Garden – The store and B&B is located in Sedgwick, Maine, overlooking the Benjamin River…
With Hammocks in Mind

Ferida Wolff writes, It is winter, now, and the maple branches are bare of leaves. I have been yearning for a step-back-in-time hammock, a return to a place of beginning and exploration, where one hammock could embrace a whole family and that fami…