When May rolls around I am very anxious to spend time in my flower gardens and have fun playing in the dirt. As we mature, we acquire a sense of pride in our property. We want our yards to look nice. This involves more than just cutting the grass. An attractive landscape around our home…

Most likely we can all come up with expressions that are clearly associated with our parents. It’s also likely that these expressions will be heard by future generations. After all, “they”say that we turn into our parents at some point in time. When I was in elementary school I used to go to my Cousin…

Back in the 1950s when I was a child if you wanted an ice cream soda or a sundae, you could head to one of the downtown Rutland drug stores. They had lunch counters where you could get sandwiches and ice cream treats. These stores were not part of a chain and they didn’t offer…

When is the last time you received a letter in the mail? I bet it’s been awhile unless there is someone in your life who actually owns a box of stationery and enjoys taking “pen in hand.” Letter writing is slowly becoming a lost art. It also means a big piece of history will be…

Oh, how life has changed over the years! You don’t give it much thought until you stop and think about the “then and now.” As I sit at my computer I recall the days of my high school typing class. We rolled the paper into a manual typewriter and typed such phrases as, “The quick…

They say that everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day! But I can truly claim that nationality. Two of my grandparents were born in Ireland. Online genealogies can provide us with the names of our ancestors but only our relatives can tell us stories about their lives. Like most young people I had no interest…

Friendship has phases that begin with our childhood friends and continue throughout our entire life. When we are old enough to go outside and play with the children in our neighborhood, we begin the process of choosing our friends. We sort out the traits and characteristics that meet our needs. Betty was the first neighborhood…

In my last column I reminisced about the various dances that were popular in my youth. That trip down Memory Lane made me think of the various ways we listened to music over the years. When I was a youngster back in the 1950s there was a large floor-model radio in the hallway of our…

All girls probably remember the first time they danced with a boy. And all boys probably remember the first time they danced with a girl. How could one forget? The adjective “awkward” is probably an accurate way to describe the event. My first dancing experience occurred in the basement/auditorium of Christ the King School. I…

Back when I was a young child in the 1950s you could downhill ski in Rutland City. The Rutland Country Club on upper Grove Street was the spot for this unique opportunity. Many of the local kids had their first experience on skis at this location. I was one of them. I remember going to…

What kid doesn’t love ice skating? Back in the 1950s our Rutland City neighborhood had a couple of swampy areas that froze over. After a snowstorm the kids would get shovels and turn them into skating rinks. The ice was never very smooth but it served the intended purpose. Neighborhood skating got a whole lot…

As a young child in the 50s I remember sitting at a pullout-top desk in our living room, writing my letter to Santa. If selected, it would be read at 4 p.m. on a local radio station. Santa would be sure to say that he had received all our letters even if he didn’t have…

As I look back at some of the foolish things my friends and I did in our youth, I can only say, “What was I thinking???” One of the pranks many of us pulled was calling people and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” Without even giving them a chance to answer,…

I’ll bet just about everyone reading this column remembers bringing home papers from school that informed your parents about the opportunity to take lessons on a musical instrument. You could rent the instrument in the beginning and eventually buy it. For me this musical opportunity came around the sixth grade. The usual “hype” accompanied the…

Odds are that most of us had someone in our lives while growing up who influenced us. We probably didn’t truly appreciate this fact until we aged. I didn’t have to go far to find the first person who made me feel very special. It was our neighbor Trudy. The houses on our street are…