Tag: Beetleypete

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to my email list to receive my monthly newsletter and other announcements. This is a one-way announcements list, meaning the only messages you’ll receive will come from me. So, you can rest assured that this list is low-traffic. Send a blank email to: newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go.

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.

After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?

***

P Is for Prom #TuesdayTidbit #Life’s Alphabet #Poetry

My senior prom was memorable and unusual, as evidenced by the following poem. You can click on the title to hear me read it.

***

Yellow Prom Memories

A long yellow skirt and yellow blouse with three-quarter-inch sleeves

I wore to my senior prom in 1980.

Dad reluctantly agreed to be my date,

as no boy asked me, and I had no courage to ask a boy.

I don’t remember the color of Dad’s suit

or the corsage and boutonniere Mother ordered.

I do recall Dad and me dancing,

me taking off my garter,

placing it on Dad’s arm,

him immediately removing it, embarrassed,

the picture taken of the two of us

that Grandma displayed in her music room for years.

Dad and Grandma are gone.

Who knows what happened to the yellow skirt and blouse,

the flowers, the garter, the photo,

but the memories remain.

***

What do you remember about your senior prom? Please share in the comment field below.

Thanks to beetleypete for inspiring my Life’s Alphabet series with a similar one of his that he posted on his blog last December. Every day, he wrote about a different aspect of his life, using words starting with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Mine is a weekly series, and this week’s letter is P. Thank you for reading.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

O is for Opera #TuesdayTidbit #Life’sAlphabet #Inspiration

I don’t remember this, but Mother loved to tell the story of the first time she and Dad took me to an opera when I was two. The year was 1963, and I believe we were living in Boulder, Colorado, at the time. My parents often played phonograph records of opera and other classical music. Since I seemed to enjoy it, they thought I might like hearing it live.

What they didn’t realize, I guess, is that at the age of two, I couldn’t understand that when you hear a live performance, you have to be quiet. As I sang along to the music in my own way, they tried unsuccessfully to hush me. We finally had to leave.

In the early 1970s after my family moved to Tucson, Arizona, Dad and I started listening to the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. I think I was about eleven. Dad had a book of plot descriptions for many operas, and before each broadcast, he read me the one for the opera being performed that day, and we talked about it. Of course, the radio announcer always gave a brief description of what would happen in each act or scene, but the descriptions in the book were more vivid.

After we moved to Sheridan, Wyoming, in 1973, we couldn’t get the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. When I was in college, we finally got access to a public radio station out of Billings, Montana, that carried the programs, and I often listened. Once I was living on my own and working as a registered music therapist with nursing home residents, Dad and I often went out to lunch on Saturdays, listening to parts of the broadcasts in the car on the way to and from wherever we planned to eat.

Years later, a local theater offered the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts live in HD on a big screen. Dad and I often attended those programs. Because they started at eleven in the morning and lasted several hours, attendees could order a catered lunch from a restaurant across the street, which we could eat during intermission. This establishment served great pasta, which I ordered, but by the time it was delivered to the theater, it was cold. But it was still good. Although I often vowed that next time, I’d order a cold sandwich instead, I never did.

Now, Dad’s gone. Although Wyoming Public Radio’s classical music feed still broadcasts the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday at eleven, I rarely listen. I’ve heard many of the operas quite a few times, and for some reason, though they now have new singers and new productions, I’m not interested in hearing them again. I no longer attend the broadcasts at the theater for that reason. But I still like opera and occasionally ask my smart speaker to play it on Amazon Music.

Do you have memories of listening to opera or classical music? Please share in the comment field below.

Thanks to beetleypete for inspiring my Life’s Alphabet series with a similar one of his own that he posted back in December. Every day, he wrote about his life, using a word beginning with consecutive letters of the alphabet. You can check out his blog here.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

N Is for Naughty #WednesdayWords #Life’sAlphabet #Inspiration

In the fall of 1968 after my brother Andy was born, I started second grade at the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson. One afternoon, for no particular reason, I knocked over chairs and threw things, much to the amusement of other classmates and myself. I even sent a figure of the Christ Child sailing across the room. Miss Willis, my teacher, sent me to the principal’s office, but since it was empty, I sat there for a while until Mother found me.

“Abbie, Miss Willis said you were bad today.”

I shrugged.

My parents had recently given me a transistor radio for my birthday. When we got home, I hurried to my room with the intent of listening to it. But Mother followed me and took it away. “You’re not to listen to this for the rest of the day. If you’re good tomorrow, you can have it back.”

Although this saddened me, there were plenty of other things I could do to occupy myself. The next day, I was at it again. “She’s jealous of the new baby,” Miss Willis told Mother. “She’s not getting enough attention.”

This time in addition to the loss of radio privileges, I received a spanking. When it was over, I lay on my bed and sobbed. Why was this happening to me? I was only having fun.

I misbehaved at school several more times. When Mother learned of my shenanigans, she took me home and spanked me. The last time it happened, it was Dad who found me in the principal’s office, took me home, and spanked me. For some reason, this left an impression on me, and I decided my fun in the classroom wasn’t worth the pain and humiliation of the punishment I received at home.

When Andy was in the third grade, he developed similar behavioral problems. Our parents and his teachers came up with a different plan. For every day at school when he was good, he received a point, and when he had a certain number of points, he got to do something he wanted, like going out to dinner or a movie.

This approach worked for a while, but in the sixth grade, he got into more trouble. In high school, he was suspended for mooning out of a school bus and arrested for being in possession of alcohol. He also had one or two minor brushes with the law when he was in college.

As an adult, when I hear psychologists on television and radio say that corporal punishment isn’t a good form of discipline, I can’t help wondering how well these experts know their subject matter. Do they have children of their own? How successful have they been at raising them without spanking them?

It pains me to look back on the punishment I received during my second-grade year, but I don’t know what else my parents could have done. Dad was working most of the time, and Mother was taking classes at the university and had all she could do to care for Andy and me. She couldn’t always be available like she was before Andy was born.

Miss Willis said I wasn’t getting enough attention. Maybe negative attention is better than no attention at all. In that case, I’m a testimonial to the effectiveness of a few hard swats on the bottom.

***

The above is an essay I wrote years ago called “Corporal Punishment.” It was published in May of 2021 on Recovering the Self. I posted it here in June of 2011.

Thanks to BeetleyPete for inspiring my Life’s Alphabet series with a similar one of his own that he posted last December in which he wrote daily about different aspects of his life, using consecutive letters of the alphabet. My letter this week is N, and that’s why I shared this essay about being naughty.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

M is for Macaroni and Cheese #TuesdayTidbit #Life’sAlphabet #Inspiration

Macaroni and cheese was one of my favorite meals as a kid, and I still love it today. When I was growing up, my mother used the boxed variety and added canned Vienna sausages. To this child’s tastebuds, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t homemade. It was still good, and I always looked forward to and enjoyed eating it.

As a single adult, I often bought Stouffer’s frozen macaroni and cheese. I don’t know why I didn’t add Vienna sausages to it, but it still tasted good without it.

My late husband Bill made macaroni and cheese from scratch by boiling macaroni and adding several kinds of cheese, and it was the best I’d tasted. He also introduced me to Schwan’s frozen macaroni and cheese, and it was pretty good.

After he suffered two paralyzing strokes and could no longer cook, I tried making macaroni and cheese the way he did. I even added Vienna sausages, which he liked. But it didn’t taste the same as his, Schwan’s, Stouffer’s or Mother’s.

Now that he’s gone, I rarely cook but instead receive home-delivered meals from the senior center. They don’t often have macaroni and cheese, probably because it’s not that healthful. Although I try to watch what I eat, maybe once in a while, I’ll treat myself to Stouffer’s.

***

Thanks to BeetleyPete for inspiring my Life’s Alphabet series with a similar one of his own he posted last December, in which he wrote daily about his life, using consecutive letters of the alphabet.

I was also inspired to write about macaroni and cheese by one of last week’s ACB Presents the Daily Schedule calls, in which we were asked about a favorite food as a child that we still love today.
You don’t need to be a member of the American Council of the Blind to participate in ACB Community calls. They have a variety of programs on Zoom and Clubhouse, some of which are broadcast on ACB Media. For more information, send an email to: comunity@acb.org and request the daily schedule. Be sure to include your name and email address in your message because, believe it or not, humans handle this email list.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***