“Sucker hole” is the inelegant term that Southeast Alaska fisherman use to describe a temporary lull in a life- or investment-threatening storm. In this case, the “sucker” would see the blue sky, load up his creaky old troller to the limit with bait and gear, head out to the fishing grounds and fill his holds […]
Category: From Powhatan to Alaska: Cosmic Connections
For when I happen across a parallel between life in my two favorite places
Seventies music and a patchwork quilt
Blogger’s note: this is a post from an earlier time! I took it down on accident, so here it is back again! “Hey, that’s my dress from fifth grade!” Scene: my sisters and I are looking over one of the many crazy quilts that our mother made during her life. Her method was simple. First, […]
An old family recipe
Imagine, what a snowball effect a few thoughts on baking cookies can have! I wrote in a previous post about a cookbook my sister Laura gave me in 1979, and the wonderful sugar cookie recipe contained therein. Betty, a longtime neighbor, family friend, cousin-by-marriage, and reader of this blog, expressed interest in the recipe that […]
Adventures in cookie making
In December of 1979 my sister Laura gave me a cookbook. We had been sharing an apartment in Anchorage Alaska while she worked for a veterinary office and I drifted from pillar to post in the world of waitressing. After six months she was preparing to go back to Powhatan, and I was moving into […]
Flies coast to coast
The houseflies in Southeast Alaska are, like their cousins the world over, unpardonably rude, but at least they have the wherewithal to stay airborne. Conversely, the houseflies in rural Virginia are too lazy even for that scrap of decorum: they land on you whenever you hold still for even a moment. I know that all […]
Full circle
I am once. . . twice. . . three times a. . . senior. Did you think I was going to say lady? The first go round of my seniorhood was of course in high school, in the fall of 1977. In my high school, as in every high school before and since, there was […]
My beautiful golden chain
“I want a gold ingot,” said my mother. “I don’t want to do anything with it. I just want to hold it and look at it from time to time.” I, and probably most of humanity, can relate. For example, I don’t wear much jewelry, but I sure do like owning jewelry. There is something […]
The magic and mystery of the acorn squash
I have often wondered, who was the first person to chase down, kill and eat a Dungeness crab or a shrimp? Exactly how hungry was this person? For different reasons, I have speculated about the journey that the acorn squash has taken over the millennia, from the vine to the belly, and whoever tried it […]
To absent brothers
In December of 1966, when I was six years old, my mother gave birth to a stillborn boy. When she got home from the hospital, she sat down with her three daughters and said, “He was such a beautiful little boy. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring him home.” My parents buried Baby Jervey in what […]
The journey is the destination
Recently, while digging through my pattern box in search of a new sewing project, I found the directions for a two-patch quilt that my Aunt Kathy had written up in her inimitable style and sent to me in the early 1980’s. In her words, it “is very simple and easy, and only requires one- and-one-half […]