Editor’s Note: Recently my husband Ken and I attended Mark Nepo’s thought-provoking, quiet weekend retreat in Racine, Wisconsin at the Siena Retreat Center, right on Lake Michigan. The retreat was about his almost-latest book You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: the power of friendship. However, just that week his latest book was published: The Fifth…
Editor’s Note: Maybe it’s an era, maybe it’s an age, but I’ve always been fascinated by trains. Here are my MiniMemories of my most memorable train rides, weaving back and forth in time from Cheney, Washington to Boise, Idaho, from Africa to Europe, and back again in the U.S. Is there a last train ride?…
In 1969 one of my favorite films was released: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was sexy, fun, and thrilling, even if it didn’t end well. Here are my MiniMemories glimpsing the Sundance Kids IN PERSON. San Francisco, California (1980s): During my lawyering days, a group of us lawyers met for dinner at a…
MiniMemories are tiny stories: the little snippets, tidbits, and vignettes of our lives that flash unbidden through our minds. They are random, often activated by something we see or read or hear. They are little stories that we trot out with family, friends, and, sometimes anonymously with strangers while we wait for our turn at…
Editor’s Note: This is the edition we must have had 1965-1966. I put it to novel use as you’ll see in this story. You’ll also see how humor saves many a day. *** I recently read in the New York Times that Arthur Frommer has died (November 18, 2024). I have a story to tell…
Editor’s Note: This small artwork, only 8″ x 8″, is an original oil painting by Arizona artist Bev Johnson. I call it “Grandmother”. I talk to this old woman who represents to me the joys and sorrows of aging, especially for women — happier days sitting in a circle weaving her clothes with women friends;…
The last time we lived in Sedona, Arizona, there was a Buddhist nun living in our neighborhood. We were to learn her name was Metta, the Sanskrit word for lovingkindness. Buddhism teaches that metta is not just an emotion, but rather a cultivated mental state in which our attention and concern are directed toward the…
Author/Editor Note: This painting “Ride Like the Wind” by Debbie Criswell is a wonderful metaphor for my sister. In writing my memoir for my Storyworth book project, I ended up telling her story. As often happens with memoirists, we become biographers. My sister, Susan Reinke, was born with the horse gene. Those of you who…
It all started with sailing magazines that arrived in our mailbox. Seems innocuous enough, doesn’t it? But we weren’t living near a body of water, large or small; no, we were living in Sedona, the Red Rock country of Arizona. What was going on? Well, what was going on was husband Ken Normington was planting…
This is our 9/11 story. In early September of 1991 Ken and I were living on our sailboat in Key West, Florida, again selling timeshare for Hyatt Vacation Club. Usually we were on Cape Cod this time of year, or maybe Virginia Beach on the Chesapeake Bay, but not this year. On Tuesday, September…
