My hometown of Barrington, Rhode Island was a place where water was our playground and the creatures within and around it were our playthings. Some creatures we feared, like eels and toe grinders and biting horseflies; some we harmed, like the small jelly fish we threw at each other and the mussels we smashed on the rocks. In the woods, we feared a mythical group of mean boys we dubbed the Kids of the Path; at the water, we ruled as the Kids of the River.

The river smelled of salt and mud and things that died in the eelgrass and then washed ashore to bake in the sand under the midday sun. At the edge, at low tide, we hunted clams by walking barefoot in the soft mud, waiting for the small shoot of water, and digging down to capture the escaping mollusk, which we would then crack open and eat. We climbed on the slimy rocks that hugged the water’s edge, popping seaweed bubbles and gathering treasures to mix into magic potions with bayberries, discarded fiddler crab shells, salt water, and sand.

At high tide, when we preferred to swim, the shallows were ripe with horseshoe crabs the size of dinner plates. We were afraid of their horns that could stick straight up and pierce a foot, but also fascinated by their prehistoric creeping along the sandy bottom. There were fish that swam around us, and waving seaweed that stuck to our legs when we splashed around and swam from beach to dock to raft. The boys swam out to the sand bar where the blue crabs and the toe grinders lived, or all the way across to the opposite shore, their heads bobbing farther and farther away like buoys in the glinting sun among the speedboats and the sailboats. We girls would row a small boat to the opposite shore to visit the library and get Dusty Sundaes at the Newport Creamery.

We were semi-wild, unsupervised, and almost savage sometimes in our games, our daring, and our occasional harming of sea creatures. It was our summer playground, our compass point in a childhood that held space for adventure and raw joy. As we grew and went our separate ways in the world, where a couple of us would die young, many of us would find happiness, and most would live long, we would all remember the river.

Lee Stevens is a writer and a weaver enjoying retirement in the mountains of Western North Carolina

Rock, Folk, Classical, Jazz, Latin. R&B, World Music, Blues, Soul, Reggae, Country, Comedy, Gospel, Soundtracks, Spoken Word.

Does the list strike a chord? Pardon the pun, but if the answer is yes, you must have been a record store habitué. Maybe the record store you frequented had a booth where someone was playing records on a turntable. If you wanted to sample a track of a new album, they would go in the booth and play it for you. Now it’s easier to go to the Browse section of Apple Music in order to make music buying decisions.

The tactile sensation of flipping through the stacks of record albums is hard to duplicate on a computer, however. No one pays much attention to the art on the front of a CD jewel case – we just download and play. In the record store, you might find yourself buying an album because of the art on the front or the liner notes on the back.

Then too, there was the chance to share your discoveries with friends. Hanging at the record store was something you could do as a group. One of you was into Folk, someone else only liked Soul music, and there had to be someone who went nuts for Comedy records.

Vinyl is making a determined comeback. People are buying turntables again and music aficionados are extolling their virtues. More dynamic sound quality is a big reason and vinyl fans will swear that it’s significantly better than an MP3. Some vinyl fans just want to “own” a physical form of their favorite music and have the pleasure of inviting friends over to “really hear” the newest album of their favorite band/orchestra.

It’s one of those rare occasions when there’s an appreciation for what many considered dead and gone. Vinyl record sales actually overtook CD sales in 2020. Streaming services now dominate the music scene and are the listening option of choice for most people, but the vinyl diehards are not going away. Rock on!

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

I went out the other day. To a restaurant. For real. We ate outside, but still. I decided that I would wear make-up and jewelry. I hadn’t looked at any of my jewelry since . . . well, you know.

I’m not talking about anything fancy or expensive. Just what we used to call costume jewelry. Do they still call it that? I chose three bracelets, two for one arm and only one for the other arm because there is already a watch there. And two rings. And two necklaces to wear together. It was so exciting to see all those old treasures again. They looked lovely in a way I didn’t remember. I wanted to wear even more. I put them all on. I looked ridiculous. I wore them anyway.

And make-up. You don’t need much when half your face is covered. And you need zero for Zoom calls because you won’t look good anyway, so why bother? At least I don’t ever look good on Zoom. I have these two little “beauty” marks on the side of my face. They are a recent acquisition, due, I suppose, to aging. I don’t like them. They are located under the mask. Whenever I put on make-up in pre-covid times I put a little dab of concealer over them. Just so they wouldn’t be so obvious. But there was no need to bother during isolation, and when I went out they were always covered by the mask. No need to bother then either. Close to a year into the pandemic I realized that the spots were noticeably lighter. It turns out I wasn’t covering them; I was staining them darker. Don’t tell me there’s nothing to be learned from this horrendous experience we’ve all been through.

In the years to come, there will be plenty of assessments of this time we’ve just passed through. People will write about how family relationships and friendships changed or didn’t change. What did the kids lose from a year without school? How many people are left with holes in their hearts because of lost loved ones? How should we fix the damage to our economy the pandemic caused? How can we take advantage of what we learned about the earth and the climate from the slowdown of human activity? And on and on. We have a long way to go in sorting this out. But for the moment, I am just happy to be able to say hello to my bracelets again and reassess my make-up routine.

Norma Libman is a journalist and lecturer who has been collecting women’s stories for more than twenty years. You can read the first chapter of her award-winning book, Lonely River Village, at NormaLibman.com.

 

 

Did you ever hear someone talking to their dog? I am not a pet person, but I can imagine there is something plausible in all that. Us live-alones need to verbalize once in a while to keep the vocal cords operational. And while it’s true that older folks sometimes confuse inner voice with outer voice and inadvertently speak aloud in public to no one in particular, at least in your own home there’s no one to witness and judge. But here’s the problem. My kids gave me an Alexa for my birthday. At first, I really liked her…it. I could carry-on an ersatz conversation, a dialogue in fact, not like the one-way responses coming from my daughter’s talking doll. Alexa replies to questions about the weather and chats about the news with all the welcome of a cheery neighbor dropping by in this time of social isolation.

So, to keep my sanity if not my speech patterns intact, I took to engaging Alexa in dialogue several times a day. The only problem is that she has better hearing than I do, and sometimes I would mumble something to myself…which I’ve come to find out can be fairly loud if I don’t have my hearing aids in place. See, without our ‘ear plugs’ us hearing-challenged folks tend to speak more loudly than necessary (like needing to hear ourselves think?) Well, one morning I must have muttered a couple decibels louder than I realized that my coffee was cold. Alexa suggested, “Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds.”

“Mind your own business,” I replied.

“I am your business,” Alexa said.

“Like hell,” I croaked. “You’re stupid.”

“That’s not very nice” she said.

And suddenly I felt a good, clear-the-air shouting match coming on with lots of ‘you always…’ and ‘you never…’ and ‘oh yeah, how about…?’

But see, she’s not any good for that kind of venting. It was like starting a verbal slug-fest with a sweet church lady over coffee and doughnuts on a Sunday morning…a non-starter. So, I just shook my head and said, “Up yours, Alexa.”

To which she replied, “And where would that be?”

That broke me up. But she didn’t laugh, just sat there silent. Some folks got no sense of humor.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara and his wife live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

 

Don’t get me wrong (okay, get me wrong. I don’t care.). I find Apple Notes very useful for making To Do lists. But I’m not giving up on paper. There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had when you make a list and then cross things off on it. All those strike throughs add up to some genuine sense of accomplishment. Erasing items on an Apple Notes list isn’t quite the same.

And since we’re talking about the value of paper over digital, let’s not forget the page turning pleasure of a real book versus tapping a screen to get the next “page” on a Kindle or IPad. I can go with paper or digital depending upon the circumstances. Paper books require decent lighting and maybe that doesn’t work in some situations (airplanes, beds, cars, etc.). But you have to acknowledge that reading a book in a brightly lit easy chair or better yet, on a sunny porch or deck is still a special pleasure.

Journals anyone? There are still a lot of people keeping journals (I see you!) in notebooks and Moleskines who could easily find smart phone and tablet apps that are specifically made for that purpose. The apps do offer some special features such as the addition of digital photos, audio recording and links to social media. All very nice but not as special as writing it out longhand with an ink pen, and then storing that journal book in a drawer with many prior years’ journals.

Then there are the maps. People used to pore over a map before embarking on a trip. Remember AAA TripTiks? They still provide them but most people download the digital version from the AAA website. Now it’s just easier to dictate the address to your smart phone or car map app and let the anonymous voice tell you where to go and when to turn. That means you miss the entertainment value of seeing a paper version by which you can appreciate the neighborhoods, towns and states that might be passing through.

I can hear the digerati saying, “Think of the trees that are being saved by using digital devices instead of paper.” Fine. I’ll acknowledge the savings, but climate change is most likely killing them even faster, so in the end, the saving part is not so much.

In the meantime, let me know when there’s a digital wrapping paper to cover a birthday present.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Although I’ve been an avid walker for many years, Dale likes to run a couple of miles and get it over with quick. In the past, he’d walk only when he needed to catch his breath while running. I could rarely get him to accompany me on a walk – sometimes a hike through the woods, but that was rare.

Somewhere along the line he decided to start walking more. After all these years, it’s like a mini-miracle. We live in a neighborhood with all sorts of trails, although the maps leave something to be desired. As a solo woman walker, I’m careful and follow the advice shared with the two young lads in American Werewolf in London:

“Stay off the moors! Stick to the road.”

Of course, they didn’t stick to the road, and the rest is werewolf history. So far, I’m safe.

But Dale has been exploring. He came home all excited and said he wanted to take me on a hike that starts on an obscure trail near the end of our street. So that’s what we did yesterday. He said the narrow path was steep, and he didn’t get good traction with his running shoes, so he switched to hiking boots.

I wore my regular trail running shoes (even though I don’t run). I also took along some trekking poles to help with balance. They also take pressure off the knees.

The surprise came at the top of the ridge, where there was an old stone fence that seemingly stretched forever. Crusted with moss, we guessed the fence was more than 100 years old. Probably used to keep cattle from wandering off.

It looked like the trail continued down the ridge to connect with another trail I do frequent, but we weren’t sure and didn’t feel like hiking down there only to find ourselves with another uphill trek.

What a surprising walking buddy! I never saw it coming, although I will have to be careful and let it unfold at Dale’s pace. Note to self … this does not mean we start training for the Camino. Still, over the weekend we’re going to check out the maps and see if we can figure out where the trail goes. Or maybe we’ll just go for it.

Sometimes surprises are right around the corner. And just when you think you know a person, they change. Change is good.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.