I grew up hearing stories about my ancestor, Captain Samuel Brockelbank, from my father and mother. In my small town of Georgetown, Massachusetts, he was famous. His former home, one of the oldest houses in town and now entitled “The Brocklebank Museum”, bore a sign during the 1970’s that read,…
This is a real gravestone in Georgetown, Massachusetts at Harmony Cemetery. David Brockelbank was my father, and he was a pretty funny guy. He was also eternally young… and had kind of a Peter Pan outlook on life. He left our family when I was 10 and I didn’t see…
Why are we obsessed with Frida Kahlo? Over the past several decades her popularity has soared. She is one of the most famous female artists in the world, instantly recognizable due to her thrilling self-portraits. Her fame has eclipsed that of her husband, mural painter Diego Rivera, who at the…
In a cemetery in Danvers, Massachusetts there is a tombstone that bears the name of my grandfather, Herbert. Etched on the line underneath him is listed my grandmother, Alice as “his wife”. This is an old-fashioned tradition that dates back centuries, but I take great issue with listing my spunky…
Steve was a modern day Renaissance Man. On our first date I learned he was a graduate of the culinary institute Johnson & Wales, and a chef at a prestigious seaside French restaurant (read about my coffee enlightenment here). A gifted pianist, his apartment was stuffed with the requisite keyboards…
My relationship with coffee started at my first summer job in Boston while working for a law firm. I was earning money for college in the fall, and had a difficult early morning schedule. I rode into the city with a senior colleague who insisted on leaving our small town…
As a child*, I listened in fear at the end of the Cold War.Adults spoke defiantly, as each new threshold was reached in Space by US or THEM. Who are THEY, I wondered? They are Soviets. My teachers taught me fear for many years.I wondered, are the Soviet children afraid…
The New England Fall Flower Show was held at The Garden at Elm Bank, the home of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, on September 21 and 22, 2024. I went there as a representative of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, reporting for their quarterly newsletter, The Mayflower. New to the…
When I was a kid, all activity in my house stopped when the Olympics came along. In those days, we had to wait four long years for a double-header of Summer and Winter events scheduled tightly within several months. We gathered in front of our flickering black and white television,…
In short, an olla (OY-A) is a clay-pot watering tool, invented thousands of years ago by people who lived in arid climates to water their crops. Unglazed terra cotta pots with small openings were inserted into holes in the ground. Water poured into the pot would slowly seep into the…