Tag Archives: RIP

Clinton’s Inaugural Ball

Events, Memories, Death, Family, , , , ,

In 1997 I (middle of the photo) was teaching the 6th grade with my friend Joan (third from the right in the photo). Her mother (farthest to the left in the photo) was an elementary school principal and through an organization she belonged to procured tickets to a minor inaugural ball for whomever wanted them. I immediately said yes and asked both my mother (second from the left) and aunt (third from the left) if they were interested. Joan brought her mother and another teacher, Caroline (second from right) brought her daughter (farthest to the right).

We had fun (I had too much fun) and we had our photo taken.

Today the only two people from that photo still living are Joan and me. When each person died I remembered this photo and thought of that photo in Back to the Future where the family members disappeared. In our case though, any disappearance was not due to not ever having been, but because they no longer were. I’ve misplaced my photo and just came across Mom’s copy.

Joan’s mom, my mom, my aunt Ginny, Me, Joan, Carolyn, Carolyn’s daughter

Sad farewells

Memories, Things,

Back when the kids were tiny we visited the shop at Woodend, at the National Audubon Society. I found a teal sweatshirt on sale that I thought was fun. It was too big for me, but sweatshirts can be, right?

What I liked about it was that it had animal paw prints on the front and a legend on the back. Whenever I wore it I got fun comments. When Andrew was young he once tried to figure out real animal prints using the shirt and guide.

Another time, I think Andrew was trying to see if a pair of scissors worked and he cut a hole in the front of the sweatshirt. After that I only wore it in the house. In the several few years, as it began fraying at the neckline and getting holes in the cuffs of the sleeves, I only wore it to keep warm when I got up in the morning.

Dean’s made some disparaging remarks about that sweatshirt and a couple of other tops lately, so when I found a couple of Amazon Basics sweatshirts that looked cozy on Amazon during Prime Days I decided to buy those and planned on tossing two sweatshirts, including the teal animal paw print one.

The morning after my new sweatshirts arrived, I donned one of them, then held a goodbye ceremony for the old sweatshirt.

I also threw my hand-me-down-from-Dean Carnegie Tech sweatshirt and my old Moosewood tee-shirt away. Dean bought me the Moosewood tee-shirt for my birthday when we visited the restaurant when the kids were very young. It had seen its day and was probably 30 years old.