Half of a soft-boiled egg left, with two toast triangles to dip in the yolk when no one is looking. Funny. Master of one’s home for a long time, but still expecting someone to say something. Mother always jumping down one’s throat over it, but the only way to soften up the charred toast cook made back then. Better now, but a fork held over a burner on the range back then, and barely gnawable.
My new short fiction piece published on my Substack. Please click through the link below if you’d like to read the rest of it
Below: In the Nursery School, a student directs the mid-morning lunch. At ten o’clock each child has cod liver oil and orange juice. Page 8 of a pamphlet published in January, 1938 by the Home Economics Department of Alabama College (Now the University of Montevallo), Montevallo, Alabama. University of Montevallo, Oliver Cromwell Carmichael Library. Cc0 License 3.0.
A splendid day to be having a picnic, sitting in the sun. Egg salad on wheat with deviled eggs sprinkled with paprika. Wine glasses and a bottle of rosé to share, hoping the police don’t see. Not supposed to, but all of them hanging out more around the taverns anyway.
my new short fiction piece. You can read the rest at this link if you like:
The weatherman having said something about snow. Three of his super-duper front things, drawn in every color of the rainbow. Must be bad, though, unless you like fuchsia and sick green mixed together. Lovely if you do, but not the right day for a fire engine red and Kelly green girl to be venturing out.
my new short piece of fictioning with the rest of it at the link if you’d like to see-
Travel testing of clothes is one of Miss Mary Gordon’s activities. As travel advisor for TWA, she must know all answers on how to pack travel wardrobe in one suitcase. Type of clothes and their place in suitcase are most common problems. Order number 00142462. Photograph caption dated April 9, 1955. Photographed somewhere in California’s San Fernando Valley. American. Photographer not given but it was shot for the Valley Times. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/70850Answers given to travelers: Job of Miss Mary Gordon, above, TWA’s travel advisor, is to provide answers to numerous questions of women travelers. She has extensive experience in field of travel. Order number 00142461. Photograph caption dated April 9, 1955. Photographed somewhere in California’s San Fernando Valley. American. Photographer not given but it was shot for the Valley Times. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/70849Tourists told how to pack for Europe: Attractive Mary Gordon, TWA advisor on women’s travel needs, in talk at May Company Valley, tells crowd of Valley Times-TWA registrants for May 9-June 1 Europe tour, what they will need and how to pack for the trip. Demonstration followed display of tour fashions by models before throng in May Company Tea Room. Tour is being handled by seven Valley travel agents. Photograph caption dated May 20, 1959. Photographed somewhere in California, probably at a May Company store in the San Fernando Valley. American. Photographer not given but it was shot for the Valley Times. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/56023/rec/3
Helen Day Stevenson Meyner (1928-1997) was born on March 5, 1928, in New York City to William Edwards and Eleanor Bumstead Stevenson. Helen Meyner was graduated from Rosemary Hall High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1946. She graduated from Colorado College in Colorado Springs with a B.A. in history in 1950. While at college, she was a member of the Gamma Phi Beta social sorority.
She joined Trans World Airlines (TWA) in September 1953, working out of New York, as TWA’s national Consumer Advisor, “Mary Gordon.” One reason Meyner took the job was that it allowed her to practice her knowledge of five foreign languages.
I don’t know whether this is Ms. Meyner posting as Mary Gordon or this lady was based out in California and also called herself Mary Gordon on professional occasions. TWA also published pamphlets with hints for traveling with children, basic travel wardrobes and other subjects. They are are of today available on ebay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/157127080887 and a menu translator pamphlet here https://www.etsy.com/listing/1254018406/vintage-1960s-twa-airlines-menu and a pdf of one of her packing advice articles on page two here file:///C:/Users/owner/OneDrive/Desktop/twa_7369.pdf
Grandfather having bought half the island back when he owned all those canning factories. Grandmother up there all summer with Father and the uncles, along with every cousin who graced Christmas, from the day after school got out to the day before it started up again. Every morning spent down on the beach, too, what with a flock of nursemaids to watch everyone and wade into the water if someone got an urge to crawl their way to Hawaii. Not like that anymore, what with the twins having wandered off and gotten lost with the bishop who lived in the big house on the bluff having to bring them back, the one who ran the Cathedral in Los Angeles.
My new short fiction piece. The rest is at the link below –
Hotter than anything with no breeze at all. The mercury in the porch thermometer up so high it’s scary. The ice cubes melting faster than you can put them in your iced tea glass.
My new envisioning/short fiction piece. Please click through the link to read the rest.
Fashionable travelers: “Those ready to set sail on the S. S. Oakmont for Thursday’s Cabrini Literary Guild ‘Passport to Fun and Fashion’ at Oakmont Country Club are, from left, Mmes. Leo E. George, Gus R. Parvin and James P. Corradi with the photograph caption dated February 19, 1960.” San Fernando Valley, California USA. American. Gordon Dean, photographer for The Valley Times newspaper. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/64276Fashions for Travel: “Members of West Valley Women’s Auxiliary, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 2805, will get a preview of vacation styles at a fashion show at 2 p.m. Sunday in the VFW Hall, 21433 Strathern St., Canoga Park. Among ‘Travel ‘N Fashion’ models will be, shown above, Mmes. Dan Mitchell, left, Gerald Rozema, Orville Daum, event chairman, and William Pearsal, co-chairman. Also modeling will be Mmes. Al Kropfl, Bill Fletcher, Gary Hal and Misses Cheryll Miny, Reada Gianelli and Mary Jane Anderson. Further information may be obtained by calling 340-2482. Fashions will be from Poise ‘n Ivy, Canoga Park, and hair styles by Lapin Brothers, Reseda, with the photograph caption dated March 14, 1964. San Fernando Valley, California USA. American. Jeff Robbins, photographer for The Valley Times newspaper. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/56422Travel with style: Mrs. Don Knoblock, left, checks script with Mrs. Robert Lynch, chairman of spring fashion show of Parent-Teacher Organization of Laurel Hall, North Hollywood. Shows will be presented at 1:30 and 8 p.m. Friday in youth center, 111919 Oxnard Street. North Hollywood, California USA. Photograph caption dated April 17, 1961. American. Photographer not given but it was shot for the Valley Times. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/53589Tourists told how to pack for Europe: Attractive Mary Gordon, TWA advisor on women’s travel needs, in talk at May Company Valley, tells crowd of Valley Times-TWA registrants for May 9-June 1 Europe tour, what they will need and how to pack for the trip. Demonstration followed display of tour fashions by models before throng in May Company Tea Room. Tour is being handled by seven Valley travel agents. Photograph caption dated May 20, 1959. Photographed somewhere in California, probably at a May Company store in the San Fernando Valley. American. Photographer not given but it was shot for the Valley Times. Valley Times Photograph Collection, TESSA, Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. Fair use license. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/56023/rec/3
Another can of pineapple needing to be chopped into little bits. Ambrosia for dessert with what’s left of the marshmallows the lady down the street made from her grandmother’s recipe card file. Not quite the real thing, but there’s not enough sugar in the stores. The old receipt calling for maple syrup, and it not rationed.
my new envisioning/short fiction piece. You can read the rest at the link-
175th Anniversary Celebration Parade, Miss Sandra Wall of Middleton, drum majorette, Huntsmen Band. Hamilton, Massachusetts USA. June 23, 1968 image. American. Photographer not given. Hamilton Historical Society via Digital Commonwealth. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:0r96gb13t175th Anniversary Parade, Myopia drag hounds. Hamilton, Massachusetts USA. June 23, 1968 image. American. Photographer not given. Hamilton Historical Society via Digital Commonwealth. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:0r96gb19g1912 Hamilton’s Summer Parade and Field Day. American. Photographer not given. Hamilton Historical Society via Digital Commonwealth. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:0r96gn3601927 Bicentennial Town Parade. Four women dressed in colonial style outfits on a Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) float for a town parade. Metal star cutouts covering the rims of the truck. Exact location not given but probably Uxbridge, Massachusetts because it is in the collections of their historical society. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:qr46x3631
A day spent listening to the fog horn do its thing. Hoping on a beach day for tomorrow more like Marco Island last Christmas with the tree tops dancing on the next island almost close enough to swim to at least if you were on swim team while not being on auntie duty towing a beach float with triplet two year olds and their puppy dog back and forth to the nearest sandbar, tow rope clenched in your teeth.
