Did you have a favorite planet as a child?


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What was your Dad like when you were a child?Dad was 47 years old when I was born, so in some ways he always seemed old to me. He and my mother had been married for almost twenty years at that point, and in the same job and home for ten years, so they were very settled in their lives. I was a complete surprise and threw a wrench into things in many ( Read more... )

What were your grandparents like?I didn’t get to have a long relationship with any of my grandparents-the first died when I was three and the last when I was twelve. What I know of them is largely from stories told by my parents and sisters and, more recently, from going through the family memorabilia and finding photos, letters, and other ( Read more... )

Has your relationship with your siblings changed over the years?In some ways my relationship with my sisters has changed profoundly, but in other ways not at all ( Read more... )

It's hard to decide which trip qualifies as "my first big trip," because travelling was something my family just did. The year before I was born my parents had taken my sisters to Europe on a six-week sabbatical trip, so that was the Big Trip often discussed throughout my childhood and I grew up eager to know when my turn for Europe would come. ( Read more... )

Can you remember a time that you were really upset as a child?When I was little, maybe three or four years old, I had a security blanket that I called my “bata”. It was originally the bottoms from my favorite pair of pajamas that had slowly worn into scraps. I loved the texture of it and the smell, especially when my mom would iron it ( Read more... )

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My father died seven years ago. We're coming up on the second anniversay of my mother's death and I'm finally delving into the memorabilia that ended up in my basement when we moved her to assisted living. I'm scanning in as much as possible, in hopes that afterward I can box everything up in a more organized fashion and not ever have to go back ( Read more... )

As I believe I've mentioned, Jason's mother died in early June. A lovely obituary for her is available here. We went out to Idaho in July for the family reunion she'd helped to plan, which became a chance for her family to mourn her together ( Read more... )

While I was in Northern Ireland last summer, I started making a list of all the stories I tell that I'd like to write down. This is one of them.Like most families, I assume, we have running jokes and catch phrases within the family that persist over decades ( Read more... )