I’m turning 64 this year. My parents are 2 years apart, so we’ll just use the same age range.
My mother was working for a nice local construction company where she had worked for many years. They were good to her. She got the job because she was good at what she did and they were our neighbors so they knew they could trust her. Outside of work, she spent a lot of time reading and she enjoyed going to tag sales on Saturdays with her sister in law Edna.
My dad was working for a local rehabilitation hospital in their Facilities Department as their painter/wall paperer which was his profession since he got out of the army in 1946. He really enjoyed working there because of all the people he got to see and my sister worked in the Occupational Therapy Department. He started golfing again when my sisters and I were in high school so he probably golfed sometime during the week and maybe weekends – I don’t really recall!
This was also the time that my mother had a ticking time bomb in her brain called a Glioblastoma Multiform weaving its way through the areas of her brain. Little did they know how different life would be towards the end of that 64th year.
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
I’m the worst when it comes to doing this for my husband. It always starts with the famous last words, “Oh honey I’ll take care of it!” In this case, it is photos I scanned to send to a friend.
3 weeks later… “No, I haven’t printed them yet. but I will.”
5 weeks later… “Oh! They came out really weird on the printer, so I sent them to Snapfish and I’ll pick them up at Walgreens”
7 weeks later… Picking them up at Walgreens. “Sorry not here! Do you have the email? Uh, this says CVS”. Oh crap .
9 weeks later… “I picked them up! I’ll send them out!”
12 weeks later… “uh, no I haven’t sent them out. In fact, I can’t remember where I put the ones I picked up.”
He says today, “I should have done it myself.” “Yes, maybe you should have”, I replied.
I could have shown him how to select, how to order, either pickup or have Snapfish send them directly to his house and moved on to something else on my To-Do List that never gets done!
I grew up watching football on tv and in person at our town’s junior football league.
Later, I was running down the hill to the high school games on Saturdays in middle school and cheering them from the sidelines once I became a cheerleader in high school.
Pickup games were played on the practice field in the fall and there was a certain thrill in evading tackles or keeping someone from the ball while on defense.
Senior year I was a captain for defense on our Powder Puff football team. We had practice for 2 or three weeks before the big game against our cross town rivals on the day before Thanksgiving.
Our son played football for the same high school team I cheered for and once again I would head down the hill to watch the games.
My family has a 16 member Fantasy Football league which as me checking the predictions and watching Red Zone closely on Sundays!
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
There are so many Good/Bad inventions created since the beginning of time but the number one “invention” that should crawl back into the hole it came from is –
SOCIAL MEDIA
MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok – maybe they were created for socialization but they took a right turn into online bullying, scams, hacking, and keyboard assassinations. There are many other sites for socializing, some I know of, some I’d probably be shocked to learn about, but I’m only talking of the ones I really know.
It was probably “ok” and “manageable” prior to the 2016 election, but after that, all bets were off. I allowed myself to get caught up in Facebook arguments with friends who became non-friends. Funny, after 2020, they came back again. I’m afraid to see what this 2024 election will bring.
Do I use them? Yes, FaceBook and Instagram both personally and for my business. I have X and TikTok accounts but have posted only minimally on X.
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
This quote is one of my favorites, but I can’t say I’ve always followed it! I have no problem with the “love many”, but sometimes for certain reasons, I didn’t listen to my instincts (or was persuaded otherwise) on the “trust few”!
What do you think about this quote and how it applies to you?
I attended one college from 1978 to 1980 and received my Associates Degree in Secretarial Science back when that was still a thing.
Annhurst College was a beautiful liberal arts college set in Woodstock Connecticut – “the quiet corner” of the state. Laid out on both sides of Route 169 it was originally a teaching college for Daughters of the Holy Spirit, the nuns who taught in the catholic schools in the eastern part of the state. It then developed into a “regular” college for girls, and by the time I got there, it was co-ed with a 5-1 ratio of females to males. At the time I was there the student body was around 250-300 people.
The college consisted of one old brick building that housed “the gym” and sciences classrooms on the second floor, and classroom/administration building, a student center/cafeteria, and cultural center of built in the 1960s. There were two dormitories – one built in the 1960s and the other built earlier, as well as another building that housed the nuns when I went there and contained the chapel. There were also old homes that some nuns lived in and one was used for the admissions office. In the basement was The Hobbit Hole, the college bar. The only official place to drink in Woodstock because it was a dry town!
I loved it from the moment I saw it. I loved walking everyday to meals and to classes along the paths, sitting out in front of the student center after a meal, or waiting for one, riding my bike to Roseland Lake, taking the school’s bus to Putnam on Fridays to pick up supplies from K-Mart, ordering pizza nearly every night (and gaining that “Freshman 15”), and just reveling in the beauty of the countryside.
Sadly, in the spring of my 2nd (and last) year at Annhurst, it was announced that it would be closing at the end of the academic year. all underclassmen were given help to find somewhere to go at that late notice and alumni were left without “a home”. It really left a hole in the hearts of everyone.
Nancy (me) Annhurst College Graduation May 1980Views of Annhurst College present day (2023)
Thankfully about 10 years ago, an alumni association was started up and there is an annual reunion held at the campus which is now part of Woodstock Academy (a private school).
My husband and I occasionally ride out to Woodstock on the motorcycle and he drives down Route 169 so I can have my bit of nostalgia.
*A common conversation after graduation:
ME: I go to Annhurst college. THEM: Oh! Amherst in Massachusetts wow! ME: No, ANNhurst college in Woodstock. THEM: Woodstock NY! Oh wow! ME: NO ANNhurst College in Woodstock CT. It closed the year I graduated. THEM: Oh! Never heard of it.
Tell me in the comments if you’ve ever heard of it!
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
For various reasons, I’m pretty tightly wound. But lately, I feel the corkscrew loosening as my job duties at our business change.
For me, playtime is doing those things I enjoy – playing the piano, reading, working in my She Shed organizing pictures and writing, and even working on the jigsaw puzzle while watching television. It is hiking with my husband or even when I go out on my own.
Playtime is anything not related to business and household chores!
I heed the wise words of keeping your thoughts on religion and politics to yourself!
I have always considered myself a conservative democrat or a liberal republican which makes me Independent. I originally registered as an independent so I wouldn’t get any political phone calls but in 2023, that really doesn’t matter (does it Nikki Hailey who keeps texting for “William” to my cell phone as do the realtors in Florida hoping to buy his Coral Gables property) anymore.
My views have remained pretty consistent since I first registered to vote in 1978.
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 