Like Telling the Truth
  • 13 Ways: Illustrated Stories
  • About Like Telling the Truth
  • Meet Your Hosts
  • Social Media & Email Addresses

Blog Archives

I’ll Be Seeing You

td Whittle

Posted on September 5, 2014

Willie and George with Baby Georgia, circa 1943

Willie and George with Baby Georgia, circa 1943

My maternal grandmother died just this past month, but had she hung in a while longer, she would have turned ninety on September 7, 2014. My grandfather was her one and only love, and they’d been married since they were teenagers. Like many Americans of the Great Depression era, their lives as children had been difficult, but their love was both enduring and redemptive for them.

 

George was a young Marine during World War Two. He ended up landing via submarine in Japan, where his platoon fought in the famously brutal battle of Okinawa, where he lost all his men and was himself shot, but survived. Willie, like millions of other American wives, waited for him back home with steadfast loyalty, and hoped and prayed that he would be returned to her in one piece.

 

My mother, Georgia, who is the little girl in the photo, was born in the middle of the war, and Willie and George would go on to have two more daughters once it ended. So, I never knew them as they are pictured here, but funnily enough, it’s how I like best to remember them: young and fresh and somehow innocent despite the serious challenges they’d already overcome, and those they were no doubt facing when the photo was taken (circa 1943). Maybe they just made people tougher back then, as I know a lot of men and women of my grandparents’ generation who embody a combination of dignity, stoicism, quiet wisdom, and grace that is not evident in the generations that followed them. My parents-in-law are of this same generation, and are cut of similar cloth, though they are English. As my mother-in-law was speaking of Churchill over dinner two nights ago, she said, “He was a real statesman. We don’t seem to have statesmen any more.” Indeed.

 

These songs are unabashedly sentimental, but they are wonderful, too, and they comforted a lot of separated lovers through more than one war. So, here’s to you, Willie and George. I’ll be seeing you.

 

1944 HITS ARCHIVE: I’ll Be Seeing You – Bing Crosby (a #1 record) – YouTube.

Bobby Darin – Beyond the sea – YouTube.

▶ Shirley Bassey :::: Hands Across The Sea. – YouTube.

 

not to worry, not to stumble

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 17, 2014

So td and I have been busy with unwriterly things on our respective continents. The past weeks have been filled with managing life, as is sometimes necessary.

 

td and Robin have been packing up house (and office and business) and moving from the city to a smallish town about two hours outside of Melbourne. I’ll leave it to her to fill us in on the details, but it has been quite a lot of work what with the packing and cleaning house 1 and cleaning house 2 and unpacking.

 

I’ve been playing nursemaid and companion to my mom several days each week. Just a few weeks shy of her 75th birthday, she took a tumble up the back steps (because that’s how we do things), breaking her left wrist and left knee cap. Both required surgery and are in immobilizing splints. Needless to say, she isn’t going anywhere or doing much of anything for herself. Before her fall, Mom, my sister, and I had planned a couple of road trips for May and then Mom was supposed to come spend a few days with me.

 

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid family vacations.

 

Having experienced a few family vacations, I may file that tip away for future use.

 

The good news is that td and I are excited about our new piece of fiction, which we are working on in tandem. It may be different from our other stories, but then again many of our other stories are different from each other. The story begins with two best friends on a road trip through the desert. If there are no other interruptions from life, the universe, or the like we plan to have it done and out this summer.

 

And we should be here more regularly!

  

13 Ways: Illustrated Stories

13 Ways: Illustrated Stories

Click on the cover to buy 13 Ways via Amazon.

The Infinite Loop

The Infinite Loop

Click on the cover to buy The Infinite Loop via Amazon.

Stranger Places: A Pie Town Novel

Stranger Places: A Pie Town Novel

Click on the cover to buy Stranger Places via Amazon.

Amazon Services LLC Associates

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Categories

  • 13 Ways: Illustrated Stories
  • Book Reviews and Essays
  • Fairy Tales
  • Ice Cream Stories
  • Life Unfolding
  • Miscellany
  • Music Videos
  • Photo Essays
  • Photo Poetry
  • Photo Sets
  • Random Recipes
  • Thirteen Ways Press Publications
  • Uncategorized

Quotes

T.D.’s quotes

"I have always found that actively loving
saves one from a morbid preoccupation
with the shortcomings of society."— Alan Paton

Goodreads Quotes

Recent Posts

  • Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami
  • Book Review: Tales From The Inner City, by Shaun Tan
  • Book Review: The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng
  • Book Review: The Thin Man, by Dashel Hammett
  • Book Review: Moon Magic, by Dion Fortune

Archives

  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • June 2010

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Return to top

© Copyright 2011

Duet Theme by The Theme Foundry