A few months ago, my sister was given tickets to The Great Gatsby at Madison’s Overture Center by a kind couple in her congregation who knew they would not be able to make the date. I agreed to join her as I always do when an event is ages out. It’s not like we forgive F. Scott for what he did to Zelda, but we both vaguely remembered having to read it at some point in our education, and it was a good tale. The day came; I tried to pull out but thought the better of it. Assuming it was a play, I was shocked when we were caught in a throng heading to the enormous main theatre. Oh my god, I said, “Is this a musical?” That ignorance happens when you don’t live in New York City anymore. You sort of give up on Broadway even though versions of it ripple out to you in the boonies.

Our seats were incredible not just because they were the end of the row in the first balcony, but we would be first in line to the loo. We were so excited and started to recall all the shows we’d seen when we still lived in New York. We bragged to each other about visiting Lanford Wilson’s house in Sag Harbor and getting drunk with him. Diana was once married to an aspiring playwright, but that was another life for all of us. It’s taken time to like theatre again, but we were positively giddy, only half remembering Gatsby’s story. “Daisy dies, doesn’t she?” I asked. “Not Daisy,” she replied, and enough was said. The lights dimmed, and the orchestra began with Nick from Minnesota entering stage left. We were rapt as the story quickly unfurled like an old familiar blanket surrounding us with memories of youth and possibility. I remembered I must have read the book in college while living in Astoria because I noted with pleasure the part where Gatsby sped in his grand car through my neighborhood. I had felt the same sense of knowing a place when I read On the Road, and Kerouac referenced my neck of the woods with, “…those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City.” Some lines and references stick with you always.

What I have never or rarely done is mark up a book I have read. It sticks if it was meant to. Diana is a copious note taker whether the book is hers or yours. Well, it turns out my daughter’s first-year roommate at college is also a note taker. She passed her copy of The Great Gatsby to Katie, and as I was about to throw it into the pile for my Little Library, I noticed her scribbles and had to look. Gen Z is hilarious but spot on.

Z’s first written comment comes when Nick accompanies Tom Buchanan and his mistress to a flop house for their afternoon encounter. Nick doesn’t know what to do with himself in this den of iniquity, and Z simply writes, “Nick, go home.” Which reminds me of the best song of the show, “The Met.” In the song, Nick, way out of his depth, wished the subterfuge Tom gave his wife about taking Nick to the Met had been the truth. So yes, Nick, go home.

Z next takes issue with the weekend parties at Gatsby’s. “All weekend? Y’all are crazy.”

When Nick first meets Gatsby and grovels, Z calls Nick a “simp.” In fact, Z has great contempt for Nick. When he declares his one virtue as “I am one of the few honest people I have ever known,” Z writes, “That’s so BS, Nick. STFU.” This kid gets it in the jargon of her time. I don’t remember ever being so angry with a character that I wrote them notes in the margin, but I love it.

When Myrtle is hit by the car, Z simply writes, “RIP Myrtle” followed by “ew” at the description of the corpse. No concern goes into the deaths of Gatsby or Myrtle’s husband, but the finale to Z’s review is the Post-it note inside the back cover entitled, “The Shit List,” where Z puts the characters in descending order of her dislike. This makes me happy on so many levels. A century later, the story holds up and still disrupts the hearts of readers.

You may recall the post I wrote about my night with Shaun Cassidy last February. In it, I described the lovely theater-sized audience and the mix of women in attendance. While most of us dressed for comfort, aiming for a casual, sophisticated “I can still look good” vibe, I also noted more than a few muttons dressed as lambs, whether suggestively in CFM boots or reflectively, as if they had never left their high school days of the 1980s. Understandably, last night’s AC/DC crowd had its own dress code: mostly black, with a sea of vintage concert shirts including at least one “RIP Bon Scott” tee proving the wearer’s long-term bonafides.

Rhinestones sparkled from numerous black tops on women of a certain age who had possibly lost their own concert tees in countless moves or divorces as they rocked through life. Since we biked to Camp Randall Stadium, I wore a sporty skort, plain blue tee, and slip-on sneakers. Katie wore her father’s Stiff Upper Lip Tour T-shirt from London in 2000, which he had given her years ago when they first bonded over the band. Theoretically, one of the best things about this concert was its incredible cross-generational appeal. We saw children under 10 wearing sound-muffling headphones, along with ground-floor fans weathered by years of living and closer in age to the band.

I haven’t been to a big arena concert in years, and I was not disappointed in the crowd of over 40,00, except for the guy in front of me, but I’ll come to that. To be sure, I am not the biggest AC/DC fan and wouldn’t have gone if R didn’t just buy the tickets and tell us we were booked. However, what is not to love about Rock and Roll and the anthems of our youth? It was bloody fantastic. They sounded great; Angus didn’t look one bit ridiculous in his blue velvet schoolboy outfit with one sock up and one sock down. He killed it with his one kick forward hop across the stage as his guitar screamed out his infectious joy of living and doing what he clearly loves. As R said, “Angus is doing his best not to let any song end.”

Brian Johnson, who Katie said was “the most mediocrely named rock star”, at least physically from a good distance, reminded all three of us of R’s dad. Johnson’s ever-present flat cap and way of jovially talking to himself as if we couldn’t hear him made me think of everyone’s favorite regular in a pub that actually has talent when he takes the mic. “C’mon Bri, give us a few bars of Highway to Hell, and we’ll buy your pints.”

Let’s return to the joy of cross-generational fanbases or lack thereof. Yes, it was wonderful to see that seventy-something-year-old rockers can not only perform the hell out of their tour but continue to nurture a fanbase of all ages; however, I fear I am definitely entering the “Get off my lawn” stage of life.

When the band finally took the stage, everyone was rightfully on their feet for several songs before people settled down to their seats until the next “must stand” moment. My back started to hurt, and I could just as easily dance in my seat as could almost everyone else but the Millennial in front of me. As he defiantly remained standing and sipping his skinny can of Twisted Tea, his sister glanced back at me and pulled at him to sit as she had. He gave half a look back to the row sat behind him and shook his head no. So, for a little bit, I was seeing this major event happen on either side of a twatty boy’s black T-shirt. To Katie’s mortification, I finally tapped his shoulder and asked him to slide over and stand in front of the woman next to me who had stood again, but he refused. Naturally, R switched seats with me, and as we all were soon up again, it was no worries. It was obvious this kid was irritated by my request and hellbent on standing alone to make his point. Eventually, R asked him to sit, and there was verbal argy-bargy in which the kid snarled at me that I could stand, like it was my God-given right too. I, with my gray ponytail, said, “No, I can’t; I’m a lot older than you.” I didn’t want to get into my spinal stenosis diagnosis, but I would have if I had to. Hopefully humbled by my first attempt at pulling the age card, he sat and, with much noted snark, told R to “Let me know what songs I can stand up for.” R returned the snark and told him to go ahead and get up when the next song began.

I got thinking about everything that was wrong with this man’s generation, beginning with the Twisted Tea. They have no self-awareness or respect for those who came before. I’m not saying they all don’t eventually get there, but it is painful to watch, much less be subjected to the insolent struggle of a generation that got medals just for turning up. Even before the concert, the opening act to this scenario was when we were entering the stadium; some kid of similar age, while walking his bike and talking to someone else, pushed an older fan off the sidewalk, resulting in words. The older fan had a limp and was hanging on to the edge of the sidewalk before the kid rolled his bike into him, and he galumphed into the road. The younger man’s inability to apologize or own that he was in the wrong was shocking. It reminded me of this time I was walking through Central Park years ago and saw a dad pushing a teeter totter for kids with legs too little to make science work for them yet. He pushed with the strength of the man he was while holding a conversation over his shoulder with people on a bench. The little girl began to bounce effusively before tumbling off. When she cried out from the dirt patch cut out by years of other more able feet, he picked her up and spanked her as if she were to blame for his negligence. Same vibe.

One other moment that harkened back to my previous posts about not being a Karen but a Jane occurred in the line to the women’s room that wound from the door to my section back to the next. Three women of my generation who have clearly lived harder than me tried to cut the line where I stood five back from entering. They were once the girls who would have terrified me in high school. They were the girls who would have slept with Roadies in their heyday to get backstage and snorted coke through rolled dollar bills pretending they were hundreds. I was in a bind. Cutting is the hill I will likely die on in the wrong situation; was this that situation? I said aloud to the young woman in front of me, “They’re trying to cut.” Game seemed to recognize game as I kept closing the gap between the young woman and me, and they did not come for me but slid in behind at a weaker link. By the time I was to the front, one of the cutters decided she should confide in me that she had Crohn’s disease, and my ardor fell away. It could have been a lie, but not one worth trying to dispel; I mean, my back can’t stand that long, that wasn’t a lie. “That sucks,” I said before heading to the stall with no lock. At least I could take that hit for her. We still deserve to be here in our aging states whether the young’uns like it or not.

My point about younger generations is that we don’t mind you liking our music. We love it, but you are not the first. You stand on the shoulders of giants, albeit giants with age-related conditions.

Mrs. Hall was old with tight short curls that belonged to another era, like my grandmother’s hairdo. I could imagine her in hard pink spikey curlers held tight with bobby pins at night. She wore cotton dresses of another time as well—short-sleeved dresses to her knee, with covered buttons and a belt. They were muted plaid or paisley prints but never showy, and covered with a cardigan depending on the weather. She was very tidy and terrifying. You did not want to catch her eye in case she called on you to “Go to the piano and find middle C.” Of course, I knew where it was on the piano because I had briefly taken lessons, but there was something about her that made me think this would be the time I hit the wrong note.

I did some research on her the other day, thinking she retired soon after we had her, but she had not, in fact. I was amazed to find that when she taught us, she was only five years older than my mother, who was not yet 40. Why had Mrs. Hall looked so old to us? I did learn she was on the school committee that oversaw busing and spoke out in support of the parents who did not want to remove their children from their local schools. Not damning because that was a difficult time and situation for everyone affected, but noted.

Her replacement, Mr. Novak, was old—very old in dark suits that hung loosely on his shrinking body. He had little hair left, with a string or two combed over the top. He probably only taught us for a year for the fun of it because music was his life. Having taught in my mother’s high school and the one that replaced it, he had been around the block. Mr. Novak taught us fun songs without a tinge of moral doubt. We sang School Days (1907), By the Sea (1914), and Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1908). This playlist added to his antique status. Mr. Novak also liked to call us out with odd lyrics like “Who knows what a hickory stick is or a beau?” As a shy person, I learned early to guess what the teacher might ask. I developed a knack for always being prepared. So, when Mr. Novak asked me, “What does it mean to root for your home team?” I was blasé, if not downright bored by the obvious, as I said, “to cheer.” You weren’t going to catch me out; I just knew he would ask me that. You can see how sensitive I was to being singled out that I remember this moment to this day.

Middle School music was fun. Our chorus teacher was a character. Deciding her long Italian name was unpronounceable to us provincials, she asked that we call her Mrs. P. She was a short, plump old lady with over-rouged cheeks, enormous eyeglasses, and what looked like a French Court wig on her head. It wasn’t that the obvious wig stood very high, but it was full of white, loopy curls that feverishly bounced when she conducted us under the instruction that we must “bring the roof down.” Musicals were her favorite, and the year The Wiz came out, we brought the roof down with Ease on Down the Road. Mrs. P was not caught in an era that defined her. We sang Meatloaf, Michael Jackson, and Joni Mitchell. We taught ourselves Rapper’s Delight to her amusement. Mrs. P gave solos to her favorite voices, and they were lovely. When Marice T. sang Always and Forever in the most beautiful, plaintive way, we all fell in love with him. Dress code was not strict for concerts, but Mrs. P expected we all looked nice and no t-shirts. Lisa V. thought it would be funny to turn up in a t-shirt that said, “Of course I’m a virgin, but this is a very old t-shirt” and found herself suspended. I mean, who owns that shirt in 8^th grade or ever? I hope she turned out okay. I don’t know what happened to her after that.

There was no singing in high school that I recall, at least not for me. I loved to sing but never had what one would call a good singing voice. I was never going to get the solo and worked to blend my tonal faults within the masses. Well, unfortunately, I sort of did once have a solo, but that falls under band teachers, which I will visit next.

Just one last note: I had a boyfriend once who told me I didn’t know any real songs; I only knew ditties. Can you imagine? I have an amazing repertoire and find random lyrics that fit any situation; it’s one of my superpowers. So I had to tell him “Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care.”

My umbrage was more about the idea that this unseen stall owner, who was just a number, wasn’t physically in the store for me to educate. I would explain JV was just an over-commercialized, over-stylized talent that all men of a certain age in England idealized. Even R had a postcard image of his hanging up in his flat when I met him. The piece in this stall was a damn print, not even a canvas, and I didn’t like to think of fellow Madisonians falling for the hype. But I digress. JV’s idealized style was good and romantic, and his real paintings go for big bucks. I think it was his over-saturation of the market that bothered me, and yes, maybe a man who did me wrong.

However, my beef with this antique mall lives on. While I did find a very affordable stereopticon there for the museum I work in, I have been ill-used by them, too. A few years ago, during the infamous annual garage sale at the Historic House where I work, I noticed glasses that were worth much more than $1 each. In fact, a little research. showed that they were worth $30-60 a piece, and I decided to offer the set for purchase to this antique mall. The specialist implied she didn’t think they could sell them, but would give me $75 for the lot. Having been abused by antique dealers in the past, I think you know that I didn’t even respond and sold them for the museum handily on eBay for about $500.

I still turn up in this location now and again. I will always love the idea of antique stores because, as I age, items from my youth increasingly make appearances and transport me. I love seeing a Corelle bowl or a free gas station glass we once had. I always smile. This brings me to yesterday, when I stopped by the pretentious antiques store with Katie and my niece. I love that they’ve added a macabre section to it, though I feel any item in it is too charged with bad juju to really touch. I noticed the coffin has been sold since the last time I was there, but the mummified hamster remains. We all know what décor works best in our homes. And as I moved through the rest of the site, I saw this:

What I know that you might not is what this plastic bag smelled like when new. I know how stiff it was to open and how well it held my school papers and Carolyn Hayward library books. I also know I never liked big floral prints, and I didn’t particularly like the color orange. When I was first given it at the start of third grade, I was embarrassed for my classmates to think the bag reflected my personal taste. I was a tomboy. But as much as I loved my black Converse sneakers that year, I loved this bag when I carried its twin. I couldn’t believe this one had made it through the last fifty years intact.

The question is what price for nostalgia? I didn’t want it, but I was curious. Can you guess?

Here is a Vettriano for you:

The first time I went to Kansas City, MO, I was on Spring Break in 9^th grade. It was also the first flight I ever took alone, and a fretful journey. I flew from Syracuse to Chicago and then changed for Kansas City. I’m the kind of person who stands up to get off the bus two stops before my own, so that I don’t miss it, making a plane change in one of the busiest airports in the world left me shaky. I was visiting one of my closest friends, Suzie, whose family moved there from Syracuse the summer before. Her mom, Sharon, picked me up at the airport, and as we drove toward Shawnee Mission, KS, I saw a wild dog tearing apart a deer in the highway’s median. Where the hell had I arrived?

Our vacations did not align, so I was permitted to join Suzie in school for my first week there. I saw a bit of Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” in her English Class and was asked to talk about New York State in her Social Studies Class, but I shyly declined—more like gave a panicked yelp before the teacher moved on. I met her new friends, scoped out her new house, and generally felt slightly uneasy with a family I knew so well in unfamiliar surroundings. The school barred my entry after two days and said there was a misunderstanding, so Sharon and I ran her daily routine errands together until Suzie’s break began. Sharon was always easy to be with; she was a cool mom. She got me started sewing a skirt that week, which I would never finish.

Come the second week, we went into the city and saw the sights, then drove to their friends’ house in St. Louis for the night, and had our Easter basket hunt the next morning. I felt so foreign and displaced, but despite the savage dog the first day and what my mom would have called a Moony trying to recruit me in O’Hare on the way home, it was a good experience. Suzie’s parents broke up soon after, and she returned to Syracuse for our senior year of high school, but that’s a different story.

When R was looking for tenure-track positions, he applied to everything and was offered a job at the University of Kansas. I was not happy in Delaware, but at least it was on the East Coast, and I was biased. KC pressured him hard to accept before he had all his offers in, and I panicked. I didn’t want to live there. Why would I want to live there? In Delaware, I was still so close to NYC, my home for eleven years, and short flights to London, my spiritual home. I remember pulling out the Rand McNally Road Atlas we still had and looking at the ground I once travelled so many years before, trying to imagine a life there.

Suzie’s neighborhood had been all new-builds and cul-de-sacs full of people trying to outshine each other rather than being real friends. I didn’t realize at 14 years old that these people were probably all unhappy to some degree, measuring their worth against each other. I’m probably only thinking of the weird mother next door to Suzie’s family, who was the coach of their soccer team. She had a menacing undertone of always trying to seem friendly while eking out secrets from kids. When I was thirsty, she offered me her water bottle and told me she didn’t have cooties, which pretty much confirmed to me that she did, in fact, have cooties. I drank from Suzie’s bottle instead.

R and I had all but accepted Kansas City was our future when other offers started coming in, including jobs in upstate New York and Long Island. I could have worked those out. I knew how to navigate those places. Thank goodness for Madison, though. It was the only one he really wanted, and I knew I could do it, too.

Last week, we ended our Americana Road Trip in Kansas City, and being there was unsettling to me once again, but for different reasons. We stayed in a wonderful Airbnb that was once the city’s main cold storage building, presumably where rich women stored their furs in an era of such things. We were right by the reason we chose to go to KC—the Arabia Steamboat Museum. We also went to the Hallmark Cards museum, as I once had with Suzie, and the incredible Nelson-Atkins Museum. We even drove over to Shawnee Mission to see the “1950s All-Electric House” in the Johnson County Museum. While there, I realized how close I was to Suzie’s old school, but I chose not to go.

The time in KC was a sliding doors moment for me; a cascade of what ifs had we accepted the university’s offer. It is a beautiful city, and I am a city girl, but I never would have loved it the way I do Madison. I think there are some places where people can’t get comfortable for esoteric reasons. Sometimes, we can’t name the root of our alienation or the cause of dis-ease that permeates a place for us. We’ve all been somewhere we know we don’t belong, even as tourists. Sometimes there's nothing obvious to dislike about a place; we just can’t be comfortable there.

Like Springfield, a microcosm of truth and fiction survives in a preserved street of old buildings. The houses of the real people who inspired Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher, and Tom Sawyer (a composite of mostly Twain) remain, though Huck’s was diligently reconstructed. Born Samuel Clemens, Twain took his pen name from the riverboat leadsman’s call of “Mark Twain” when his weighted line measured two fathoms of water depth, making it safe for riverboat passage.

I don’t think I have ever appreciated Mark Twain as I should. He was hilarious, as most of us know, with particularly timeless quotes such as, “No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot,” and “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness…” He was an American genius who, while capturing the time and place he knew best, wrote of childhood shenanigans everyone can relate to. Well, except my kid, who had no time for Hannibal past lunch at Java Jive and laughing at the MAGA Christmas ornaments in a gift shop. It seems I scarred her as a child when my friend and I wanted some mom time and put our daughters in front of the movie The Adventures of Huck Finn at too impressionable an age. The dead man in the cabin haunts her to this day. If only I could take back my selfish need for 20 minutes of adult conversation during the otherwise spotless childhood I gave her. We live and learn.

In 1973, my mother took us to see Johnny Whitaker as Tom Sawyer at the drive-in. I remember lying on the hood of our station wagon, simultaneously crushing on his impish looks and wishing he would comb his damn hair. Unfortunately, as the family tattletale, my siblings quickly dubbed me “Cousin Sid.” It stuck for years until I’m sure my brother forgot why he sometimes referred to me as Sidley.

It has been 150 years since Twain wrote this opus, and big doings are planned in Hannibal this summer. However, I’m glad we missed the fanfare and could enjoy the walk down Main Street in serenity. We even stopped in to see the Unsinkable Molly Brown’s childhood home. It was wonderfully curated and chock full of her life story despite its wood-shack size. If you are planning an Americana Road Trip, I can’t recommend this little Missouri oasis more.

It’s six a.m., and we’re finished with Springfield, IL. Within the hour, we will leave our hotel on the outskirts of town and head west to Hannibal, MO, leaving Lincoln for Twain. It’s not that Springfield is an inherently dull town, though it is, or very unlike any other small state capital cities in the U.S., because it isn’t. As with most unexpected capital cities, it was chosen to be equally accessible to the state’s rural and urban populations.

If you ask the road tripper, the main point of interest in Springfield is the lovely National Park oasis in its center. Caught in halcyon amber are the gingerbread colored and complementarily trimmed houses fronted with timber sidewalks, backed with soft summer gardens, that immortalize the Lincoln family’s neighborhood of seventeen years. It is a community where immigrants and former slaves were Lincoln’s friends and neighbors, and his sons ran wild in untethered childhood. In this home, Lincoln accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president and left behind the house for Washington, DC, when he was elected.

I can’t put my finger on what was wrong with Springfield; however, as with most of my recent U.S. travels, the city was without foot traffic except for the dribble of tourists who quietly materialized just in time for a tour to begin before disappearing into the ether at its end. This was the case at the Lincoln neighborhood as well as the Dana-Thomas House—built as Frank Lloyd Wright’s first commission with a “blank check.”

Tourist areas of my childhood bustled with carloads of families, ice cream shops staffed with world-weary, local teens, and souvenir shops with random items like Mexican Jumping Beans and soft plastic coin-purse keychains that you pinched open.

We stopped by the Oak Ridge Cemetery twice, first on Memorial Day when we arrived to find Lincoln’s tomb closed, and then again after our house tour the next day. It was a lovely, musty monument to the dead, full of beautiful statues of a good man. As we drove away, we saw the headstone for Robert Vose, the “Korndog King”. If you wonder why Vose bagged such a good gravesite overlooking Lincoln’s final resting place, wonder no more; selling beloved corndogs at the Illinois State Fair aside, Vose was a community-minded man, and his obituary supports this lucky location. https://bit.ly/3PP5aBY

In search of the living, we stopped by a local used bookstore around the corner from Lincoln’s old law offices, but, again, it wasn’t bustling. The temperature was 85 degrees out, and maybe people knew better places to be. But my family can’t resist the book that should not be overlooked.

One more attempt to at least find what history aside from Lincoln might be of interest to locals had us stop by an antiques mall to see what was available. Like most places full of items that have survived time travel, it was a bit creepy in parts. For example, we weren’t sure how to interpret the inclusion of the presidential pin, but it seemed to be a cohesive installation.

There is one good thing about garage sales I forgot to mention in my earlier piece. That is the rare treasure that can turn up and teach you lost history. This little doll is called a Frozen Charlotte, and as cute as she is, her origin story is dark. First manufactured in Germany around 1840, the dolls were popular through to the 1920s.

Charlotte’s story is a cautionary tale about vanity, telling of a young girl dressed in her finery who goes to a New Year’s Eve party by sleigh. Told to wrap up warmly, she refused, insisting that everyone must be able to see her beautiful dress immediately upon her arrival. By the time she made it through her journey, she had frozen to death.

Charlotte gets her name from a poem based on this tale, entitled “A Corpse Going to a Ball,” written by Elizabeth Oakes Smith in 1843. http://bit.ly/4wUcqgL The poem was later turned into a ballad as well.

The penny dolls (now worth $20 and upwards) are naked, not because we shouldn’t admire Charlotte’s dress as she had wanted, but because the dolls were marketed as bathtime toys and were also often hidden in cakes and puddings. According to Wikipedia, there were male counterparts known as Frozen Charlies.

In preparation for my 60^th birthday, I spent many hours putting together a slide show of my life. For years, I have made sporadic attempts to sort out my photos, and I’m old enough not to mean my online library. The photos I refer to include the inherited Victorian family members whose names are lost to history, to the random few black and whites I have of my parents and grandparents, to my blurry early childhood when no one knew how to take a good, centered photo, through to my young adult years before we all went digital. I also have random Polaroids, including the infamous Cowgirl.

There was something wonderful about dropping film off to be developed and waiting to see the magic you thought you captured. Every picture really is a story, from the horrendous hairdos and outfits we chose for our school photos to the set of a jaw or a glint in an eye in other captured moments. We remember (mostly) what was happening and what certain thoughts are being conveyed through time. I spent the first run through of the slides at my party narrating each photo until Richard told me it was okay to stand down. Everyone knew what they were seeing. My friend Diane pulled up a scanned photo on her phone of her and her sister in their ballet costumes that completely matched Diana and me. And it hit me that while I have never been comfortable being the center of attention, what I do love is making others remember, laugh, and share our experiences and enjoy who we once were and who we are now.

It is no surprise that I am sentimental. No surprise at all. That is why I made sure to include the first wearing of my navy gingham babydoll dress with stars, and coordinating red gingham bubble panties made for me by Mary Kimball for my sixth birthday. The first photo is mostly about the love between David K and me as childhood sweethearts. However, I kept that dress, and it was the perfect thing for Kate to wear when Richard became a US citizen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2009.

While picking my favorite photos, I recognized there were three and a half folks that came up the most in my life: my husband, my daughter, my sister, and my long-lost-to-me cousin, David H (the half because I haven’t known him in 30 years). However, there were so many others besides friends from all walks of my life, obviously, my parents ranked highly, as do my nieces. Becoming an aunt took the pressure off becoming a mother off me, if it never happened for me, and I have so many photos of us in complete mutual adoration.

So, here’s my point: enjoy your developed photos and make yourself a slideshow. Don’t put parameters on it that will stall the creative process, such as labelling decades and places, unless you’re really good at the detail work. Take your photos out of the boxes and relive the joy today. I will tell you what to do about your digital library when I figure it out, but life is good.

We begin accepting donations early in the year and fill our historic house’s basement with the castoffs of others. Then, starting two weeks out, we spend about four days marking them all and setting up our sections: books, Christmas, frames, china, unquantifiable shit, etc. Then, because I’ve been around the secondhand market a few times, I pull out the quality stuff to sell just below eBay prices or, if that fails, I sell it myself for us on the site after the sale. I do this to heal from harmful lessons learned. I can’t stand being taken advantage of, but I’ll come to that.

At nearly 60, I am the youngest on the staff, and these (mostly) women have been doing this for years, long before “vintage” became a thing. Everything gets marked in the craze, and people’s possessions get accidentally sold off in the scrum. I had to pull my sweater off the clothing rack, saddened to see it was worth only $2. Maybe if they knew it was part of a twin set, it would have had more value. Then two of us emptied a lovely wicker basket of one of the women to rearrange a display of lead figurines, forgot it was not part of the sale, and sold it for $4. It went to a customer who said, “This is just what I need.” So that is something.

Briefly, in the 1980s, my mom and my aunt thought they’d get rich in the estate sale market. They’d buy up lots to sell on our front lawn. I hated it. I found it humiliating, though I threw some of my own stuff out there on the off chance that I could make a buck. I distinctly remember Crazy Mary, who walked the length of Salina Street in the Valley nearly every day, talking to herself, dropping by one of our sales. I couldn’t believe I was so close to the quirky legend of our Valley, much less that she was interested in my light blue and navy Puma shirt. I had bought it cheaply at the State Fair because the logo was printed off-center. Crazy Mary was likely only 10 years older than me, so in her mid-20s at the time. No one seemed to know anything about Mary except her moniker, which we all knew by osmosis. She was harmless, but sad to see on her aimless journey. Later, I would see my shirt on Crazy Mary and wonder why she liked it, too. It was a “second” in quality, and since I dumped it, she was happily wearing a “second” squared. It was an uncomfortable connection I did not want to delve into too deeply. It was just a silly shirt, but seeing it on Crazy Mary made me feel weird. I left mom and Aunt Carla to their sales after that, not liking to see the afterlife of my discarded things.

Now I want to come to my real emotional trauma with selling one’s things. If Crazy Mary was a sample, I was completely undone by the antique dealer my father had handpicked when he was dying. Dad said the guy would offer us a fair price on the contents of his house. Thankfully, my brother was already dead, so we didn’t have to deal with his shenanigans, but my sister lived in Florida, and I was living in London. My father was living in his childhood home in Frewsburg, NY, when he died, making logistics very hard. The house was full of treasures my grandmother had collected throughout her lifetime. After Dad’s funeral, Diana returned to Florida with her little ones, and I had only a few days before I had to return to the master’s program I had begun back in London. I was left alone to hastily strike a deal with the antiques guy my dad told me was a “good guy.” He was not.

We danced around with him saying, “That’s not in good shape,” or “There’s no market for that,” until he gave me just short of $2,000 and loaded up his pickup truck like a Beverly Hillbilly with everything from spinning wheels to my grandmother’s wicker clothes hamper. He tried like hell to get my Handel lampshade from me, but with Diana on the phone, we agreed not to trust him. “My sister wants it, so that’s not for sale,” I lied. At the last minute, he picked up a metal truck from my father’s childhood and said, “Can I have this, since it’s broken?” I had just buried my father, been dumped by the boyfriend I moved to England for, of course, take it. I later found out that he put it on eBay for more than he gave me for everything else. So yeah, fool me once…

As for the Handel lampshade, I took it to Antiques Roadshow when it came to Madison in 2009. I can’t find the clip, but they filmed me, and it did air. It was worth about $4,000 if I remember correctly, more with the base that my father had thrown out. However, my clip was brief because I made the cardinal error of asking something like, “How does one sell such a thing?” That wound up on the editing floor since their whole game is that you are meant to love and keep your treasure.

One other thing I kept from my dad/grandmother’s house was the French doors. When I was back in London, Diana went to Frewsburg and started preparing the house for sale. I had always wanted the clawfoot bathtub, but that was impossible, so I had her save me the French doors between the dining room and living room instead. They have remained unopened for 30 years, but I will think of something to do with them yet.

Next year’s garage sale will be much the same: grabbing back our own stuff, having people tell me the solar lights we sold them a year ago don’t work, and asking that we give them a $4 credit for this year. Boxes of Pyrex will be marked as junk, but I will persevere for the cause of the Dean House. At least it’s not held in my yard.

OMG I FOUND IT!!!!!

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/appraisals/handel-chipped-ice-lamp-shade-ca-1920/

Does anyone know how to sell such a thing?

Between earning my associate's degree in 1986 and my bachelor’s degree in 1988, I worked for the Pyramid Companies in Syracuse, NY. They were shopping mall developers of dubious character. The story goes that the owner, Robert “Bob” Congel, began his career in construction, laying sewer pipe in Syracuse, before becoming the biggest mall developer in the Northeast. He was thought of as a self-made man, but his business practices weren’t always straightforward or kind. I learned this on the job.

In the summer of 1986, I took a typing course at Boces (adult education) after I had lied about the skill to get the job of temporary assistant to Becky Rosenbaum in Pyramid’s Tenant Coordination Department. No, I could not type, but I did learn all but the number keys and was soon hired as a full-time administrative assistant. Our department oversaw the plans and specifications, ensuring each store in our malls met both the local building codes and “our” aesthetic. I copied many sets of blueprints, and I remember 2x2 tegular ceiling tile was of the utmost importance.

The first mall I worked on was Salmon Run in Watertown, NY, which was well underway when I arrived on the scene, requiring very little from me. That Christmas, our boss took us all out to a fancy lunch where he regaled us with some of Pyramid’s construction lore that I didn’t know. Congel and Company had taken pains to move a butterfly sanctuary in Albany to build their Crossgates Mall. It was a ridiculous display of wealth and ego, but it worked, and the story was told in an “isn’t that awesome” manner. I held my tongue and filed the information away as I nibbled my entrée. The next story our boss relayed was of the “hilarious” time a reporter on the construction site, possibly again in Albany, was told to move his car. The car wasn’t relocated fast enough, and the cement pourers filled it with the contents of one of their trucks.

There were only three women at this table, and I was utterly appalled. While the men cheered and guffawed at the reporter’s misfortune, I asked, “But did they compensate him for the damage they caused?” My boss hadn’t expected this reaction and gave me a look like “What don’t you understand?” So, I continued, “That sounds criminal,” at which point the table fell silent. My boss was clearly trying to be one of the boys, but I’d put him in a moral predicament. More as an aside to me than an announcement to the table, he said, “Yes, they paid for it,” clearly miffed I had punctured the supposed glory of his story.

The second mall I worked on was the Champlain Centre in Plattsburgh, NY. I had been promoted to Tenant Coordinator when our department moved into beautiful new offices on the second floor of the remodeled Clinton Exchange (previously, Syracuse’s main post office). The new title put me on-site for a great deal of the project. I worked out of a construction trailer and lived on-and-off in a hotel and in a local employee’s house. The job terrified me. I never felt comfortable calling Gap, The Limited, or any store, for that matter, including kiosks like Sunglass Hut, to tell them their plans were unacceptable. It had to be 2x2 tegular tile, not 2x4 for goodness sake. They had the manual, and I was twenty-one years old, having to tell them they could not build. I was out of my comfort zone, and I disliked malls to boot. For my entire two years at the company, I only bought clothes from catalogs as a matter of principle.

Working on the Champlain Mall was fun, though. By that time, I had recruited my boyfriend, Anthony, to the company; he was onsite with me in Plattsburg working as an assistant accountant. We were very professional and did not outwardly expose our relationship. But it was awkward when the main accountant tried to share girl talk with me and tell me how cute she thought Anthony was. I had to shut her down. But I digress.

The only time I ever flew in a terrifying six-seater plane was over the Adirondacks, from Syracuse to Plattsburgh, with besuited millionaires who were “partners” in the mall. I don’t know who had mandated my involvement, but there I was --- clenched in fear and thinking of Patsy Cline. “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” the plane’s motors drowned out any reasonable ability to communicate with the other five passengers enjoying cocktails, and I spent the flight silently praying and forcing myself casually to admire the mountains I might die on. Never again.

The mall opened, and I distinctly remember preparing for the festivities. Anthony came to my room to pick me up, and when we looked in the mirror as a final step, we laughed. We were so 1980s that it was as if Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis stepped out of the Top Gun promotional poster. I wore my sister’s strapless black lace Gunne Sax dress that I had Anthony’s mom sew ribbon straps on so it would not slip down my non-existent bustline.

Despite the questions surrounding Congel’s methods of operation, something everyone in Syracuse loves is our university sports heroes. Congel made it a practice to look after his favorites. He hired Syracuse University football players who were only going to have at best middling professional careers. His door was always open to them. They would become partners in a mall by putting money (often loaned by Congel) up front, in the hopes that they would make it all back on opening day. That was how all partners were made, but they had a direct line. By the time I was working on my third and final mall, my original boss had been made a partner. Being a weedy little man of freckled complexion, he always seemed out of his depth. In fact, during his lead-up to partner, he looked like he was rotting away from the inside out with the stress of it all. How did he think I felt when he had me drive his Audi to the dealership? Talk about stress. Should I have told him I failed my driver’s test twice? I drove Erie Boulevard like it was the bunny hill, and I had just learned to snowplow.

The last mall I worked on was the Berkshire Mall in Pittsfield, MA which opened in 1988. By this time, I knew I wanted to move to New York City and finish college at Hunter. My sister had moved there in 1987, and I couldn’t be kept away from the city; I planned to study city planning or “urban affairs”, as the catalogue hilariously called it. Despite the belief everyone held that Anthony and I would marry, this was my next plan, and he could follow me or be damned, as mentioned in other writings.

The drive from Syracuse to Pittsfield was a straight three-hour shot along the New York State Thruway to Albany, and then down into Massachusetts if the snow wasn’t swirling. There was an enormous crew of us on this job, and we filled most of the rooms in a local motel. As the only woman in the group, I had a double room to myself. Much to my resentment, to save the millionaire’s money, my new boss suggested Anthony share my motel room. I flatly refused. Anthony and I did not live together, so why should I save them money and put myself ahead of my comfort level for them? I think I was only asked because I was a young woman. If it were reversed, a man would not have been asked to give up his island. I thought it was utterly improper for them to think this was okay. Besides, I liked to shut my door at the end of the night and get away from all the men I had just spent the day with. They were macho, sexist, and puerile. They liked to play construction gods bestowing modernity on small-town USA, when in fact they were not. Malls were destroying downtowns and small businesses. This is why I chose city planning.

There are many stories still to mine from this era, but what I want to say is that something once built so shiny in my memory that I can still imagine the sample boards of materials used to decorate it, is now in complete abandoned decay. The Berkshire Mall closed in 2019 and is the stuff of adventures now. There is a slew of urban explorers who have posted videos of what the Berkshire Mall has become. What reminded me of this time in my life is that I happened upon the video below and felt the oddness and impermanence in a construction project that affected so many people. It made people rich, it made a town change its focus, it let humans consume or find employment, and it moved me onto a different path. Sadness echoes loudly in abandoned shopping malls. Looking at this video, I see the arteries of my youth full of fallen plaster and decaying plastic.

Free4All’s video on the abandoned mall today.

To my mild amusement, my sister sent me a two-year-old obituary for our stepmother yesterday. Below is an excerpt from “The Known,” the first part of my unpublished memoir, Chickens on the Niagara Frontier. To set the scene, my brother, Rich, was 14 years old and had “run away” (more like was banished) to live with my father, Dick, in Washington, D.C., where my father worked for the Department of Transportation. My sister Diana was 9 years old, and I was 7 years old, and we lived in Syracuse with our mother Sandie and grandmother Kate.

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Rich made his way to Dick’s tiny studio apartment in D.C. next to the Watergate building. However, the cozy bachelor set-up didn’t last long for a reason you could never imagine. Carol, an old high school friend from Jamestown, NY, had heard my father was divorced and reached out. Before my mother, it was Susie Bartell and Suzie Peterson who had been his true loves. However, Dick later claimed he had dated Carol Kestler a little bit too. Thrilled by Carol’s renewed interest in him, my newly sober and newly converted Episcopalian father struck up a long-distance relationship with Carol over the telephone. That was where Dad conducted most of his relationships, including with my sister and me.

My parents were divorced for three years when this occurred; they lived in different cities and as separately as children in common would allow. Diana and I were firmly on our mother’s side, though we loved the idea of Dad; Sandie never said anything bad about him. Simply put, Diana and I were certain there must have been a good reason Sandie left him. I was so young and trusted my mother implicitly that I don’t remember being very concerned about where Dick was. It never felt like we left him behind, though, in a way, we did.

When Dick took up the job in D.C., we kept in touch with weekly phone calls. We knew we loved each other because we said so at the end of every conversation. Dad sent Diana and me matching postcards from wherever he went on business. I don’t remember him doing the same for my brother, but Diana and I were always treated the same, as if we were a matching set. When Dick went to Salt Lake City, we received oversized cards featuring a picture of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. When he went to Dallas, we each got a postcard picturing a cowboy riding a giant jackalope, which said, "Everything is bigger in Texas." Dad missed a lot—a lot of time, a lot of memories, and a lot of us growing up. He never knew what to say, and he was never age-appropriate with our life stages. When Diana was seven, and I was five, he sent us DEA brochures full of all sorts of prettily colored illicit pills to spend our lives avoiding, coloring books about train signal safety, and full-on recruitment brochures on joining the Coast Guard. Afraid that throwing them out would somehow suggest we didn’t love him, we kept these ridiculous items far too long. Reflecting, I’m now sure he gathered them up at a government job recruitment day.

Dick’s new link with Carol put an even greater strain on our relationship. The first time we heard of Carol was the worst time we heard of her: she had proposed marriage to Dick over the phone. Dick was struggling with his new sobriety and, unfortunately, turned to his 14-year-old son for advice. Rich, wanting to be worthy of his father’s confidence, said, “You should marry her if you want to.” So, he did.

Dick told Sandie first, blindsiding her with the news. She held her cards close, betraying no ill will as she bravely smiled and handed the phone to Diana. I had pieced together what was happening from hearing one side of the conversations ahead of mine in the queue. However, when Dad said directly to me that he wanted me to come to his wedding to a woman I’d never heard of before, my stomach dropped as if it had just gone over the top of a Ferris Wheel. I knew to play along and congratulate him, but I was off the phone as fast as I could be. Afterward, I was unsure if we were allowed to cry, but that’s all I wanted to do. I looked to my mother for a cue, but she sat stoically at the kitchen table. She lit a cigarette and gently asked if Diana and I were all right.

“Of course, may we be excused?” Diana asked. And Sandie, wanting a moment for herself too, let us go.

Once alone, Diana and I were frantic and truthful.

“Okay,” Diana asked, “What are we going to do about any kids they have?” She was streets ahead of me in offensive mode. I finally began to cry. I barely had my dad now, and his new kids would have him all the time. My comfort level with sharing was still severely underdeveloped. And, almost as soon as I realized how generous I’d have to be with my dad’s new family, I recognized an even weightier drag on my heart: we would have to share Grandma Mabel, and that was not acceptable. My paternal grandmother was a loving, retired third-grade teacher who spoiled and adored us. In return, she was just about our favorite person in the whole world. Our childhood list of favorites probably went like this: Sandie, Mabel, Kate, and then Dick, though there were good reasons to love each of them.

In that terrible moment, Diana and I agreed that we would hate any children Dick and Carol would have and do our best to keep Mabel’s attention and love on us. It was a deal; we spat and shook. Those unborn babies would have a hell of a time ahead of them. And it felt like they’d be coming soon if the speed of the engagement was any indicator.

Imagined half-siblings aside, the most upsetting thought about all of this was that we knew that Sandie was deeply wounded somehow. Maybe she wanted a Parent Trap moment, too, though I honestly could not imagine any situation where my parents would suddenly fall back in love, though not for lack of my trying. I still wondered why they divorced. I didn’t remember fights or upset, but it must have been there. My mother must have done her best to swallow it whole so that we would not feel it.

The few weeks between the announcement and the wedding were ones of questions. In every moment that fell quiet between us, we asked Sandie how she felt. We even asked the now-obvious question of why she and our dad had divorced. Sandie was reassuring and kind. It was a point of principle for her never to speak badly about our father to us. Revealing only necessary details, Sandie was careful about what adult confidences she shared with us. Dick was an alcoholic, and that meant he had trouble being able to stop drinking.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “Your dad is better now. I’m glad he is happy.” On that score, I believed her.

As for the impending marriage, she was not okay. We’d hear her on the phone with her sister, Carla, in hushed tones that would suddenly rise in pitch and drama before dropping down to a hush again. While she may never have wanted him back, I think she wanted Dick to miss her and to acknowledge what he lost. Instead, he seemed to move forward in a way she hadn’t been able to. On the outside, it looked like he had fallen in love again, and we had to prepare for the changes ahead.

I told my mom I would be happy not to go to the wedding if she’d prefer and hoped she’d agree for my sake. I openly admitted I would never like Carol and that I might not ever even be polite to her. I could see my love and loyalty pleased Sandie, but those were not the words she spoke. Instead, she gently led me to the truth.

“Jenny,” she said, “you do not have to go to the wedding, but it would hurt your father terribly if you did not.” She tried to tempt me into final acceptance by saying, “We really need to find you a dress.” I knew if I got the dress, I was going to have to attend, and though Dick didn’t know it, I was not going.

Shopping with my mother was one of the real joys in my life. Even now, I sometimes dream she is alive, and we are rifling racks together. When I was a teenager, she’d accidentally push me into cute boys in the mall and call it a shopping accident. It sounds mean, but it was funny. Every autumn, I get nostalgic for back-to-school shopping with her. There was pure joy in the heft and weight of bags full of coordinating clothes and a nice, new pair of shoes. We’d go to Friendly’s after and, over black and white shakes and burgers, we’d review the day’s work.

Occasionally, we’d walk the length of the mall to see what was new, but Sandie only really shopped in department stores. Foxmoors was too trampy, and the Gap did not appeal in its early years since we bought our Levi’s at Charney’s Men’s Store. Mom liked Dey Brothers, Sibleys, and even Chappells. However, we did like one little boutique that struggled for its identity against the flash and appeal of chain stores. Even as a kid, I could tell Irene’s Dress Shop, its old-fashioned mannequins with skewed wigs and its ancient salesladies who wore tape measures as stoles didn’t know how to be part of a shopping mall. But the dresses were fairytale pretty. Instead of racks of the same dress in various sizes, Irene’s dresses were unique, on white plastic hangers and individually covered in clear garment bags.

Days before Diana and I were to go to Frewsburg for the wedding, Sandie demanded we get into the car and head to Fairmount Fair Mall.

“We are getting this done today,” she said sternly. Like that Ferris Wheel and its operator who won’t let you off until the ride finishes, no matter how much you scream at them as you spin by, I realized this was happening. Diana called shotgun and sat in the front seat by the window. I sat alone in the back seat and leaned into the rhythm of the passing scenery: the soldiers’ graves from 1812 on the top of Seneca Turnpike, the abandoned Onondaga County Poor House, and the donkey in the side yard at the fork in the road towards Camillus. What would be the harm of looking at new dresses? I may not even find one I like.

Sandie didn’t park by an anchor store. She’d given this a lot of thought. If she had to dress her daughters for her ex-husband’s wedding, she was not going to be found wanting. She marched us through the middle entrance and directed us right to the front of Irene’s. I know Diana’s heart was soaring like mine. There were Polly Flinders dresses in there! We’d only ever had them as Susan Kimball’s hand-me-downs. Awestruck, I looked up and down the wall of dresses, all hung on one side of the narrow shop with no obvious stockroom. How would I ever decide? The saleslady looked me over, and with a long-hooked pole, decisively reached up and lifted down a crisply wrapped dress. It was mine: a smocked dress of royal blue dotted with small red, white, and yellow tulips. Over the shoulders lay a stiff white cotton bib with delicately looped lace trim. In one fluid movement, the saleslady had it off the hook and out of the bag.

I admiringly reached out to feel the cotton lawn for myself. “Do you like this one, Jenny?” I heard Sandie ask. Suddenly ashamed, I caught myself and pulled my hand back. How dare I be tempted to betray Mom for this dress? But Sandie was the one tempting me, and it was she who permissively coaxed me to try it on. At that moment, I knew all that my mother offered to and asked of me.

The wedding came. I wore the dress; I twirled in it, and I kissed the big-nosed bride in it because I was told to do it.

“Dick, your daughters are lovely,” someone said.

Didn’t I know it! What I didn’t realize is that I would never wear the dress again, or rather, Sandie would never want to see the dress again. It hung in my closet for the summer as I quickly outgrew it. But instead of linking into the usual neighborhood chain of hand-me-downs, Lori Fifield never would own the dress after me. Instead, it went directly to charity without anyone consulting me. Kate had done the same thing to Sandie’s wedding dress when she and Dick broke up. Dresses with too much meaning disappeared in our house at a mother’s discretion.

As for the marriage, it didn’t last even as long as the dress. It was over and annulled in a week. Dick’s uncle was a judge. It turns out Carol was a lesbian. Dick may or may not have heard the rumors, but she conned him into thinking he was the right man at the right time. Carol rationalized her deceit by explaining, “I was getting old, people were talking, and I needed Mrs. in front of my name.” It was a different era, and she was an odd, selfish person. Dick let her keep our name, and when my brother rolled Dick’s first pickup truck into a ditch and ended up in the hospital, Carol was his attending nurse. “Hi Mom,” he said to her, necessitating some explaining to colleagues. Even in his own pain, Rich would not miss a chance to cause others discomfort.

Post Script: I don’t hate Carol, but I don’t like her either. She went with my Dad to their 40th High School reunion as old friends at her request. He had to extricate himself from her presence when it was apparent she was still suggesting he was her husband to protect her reputation. Also, since Diana and I were so shocked to see no mention in her obituary of how Carol got the surname, Lucas, we decided to give you the rest of the story. RIP

The first-class rail car that sixty-nine-year-old London banker Thomas Briggs entered on the evening of July 9, 1864, was well-appointed. According to one contemporaneous report, the four cushioned seats of “two facing two” with a dividing armrest were made of dark blue fabric with “American leather” undersides. The reporter noted this because the cushion on the far-right side was flipped, exposing the leather and dried blood pooled in the indentation made by the upholstery button.

There had been a horrible scene in this corner of the carriage, and blood splattered the windows, armrest, and the floor’s cocoa matting. The outside of the car, whose window was open but barred to prevent passengers from hanging out, was also blood-streaked. Another mark of the violence that took place came shortly after, when two women in a train passing near Victoria Park claimed their dresses were spotted by blood flying through their open carriage window. The blood was believed to have belonged to the injured Briggs, who did not alight at his stop but unwillingly left the carriage of his North London Railway commute bludgeoned, robbed, and thrown to the tracks just outside Hackney Wick Station. This clipping explains how the blood reached the women:

While Briggs was discovered by a train driver arriving in the opposite direction, who stopped and carried him to a local pub for assistance, his assailant was nowhere to be found. Briggs died early the next day, never fully recovering consciousness and becoming the first person ever to be murdered on a train. By all accounts, he was a well-loved and respected man living in Clapton Square, then a “smart address” in northern London. As an annual pass holder, Briggs was well known to the railmen who worked out of the Fenchurch Street Station, and that night, they were among some of the last people he knew to see him alive and wish him well. Briggs had spent the earlier part of the evening with his niece and her family.

The Met was immediately called in, and while fingerprinting technology did not exist yet, they were able to piece together a likely scenario. The murderer had probably bashed Briggs with a “life preserver”, then robbed Briggs of his gold watch, chain, and top hat while leaving his own crumpled, less formal hat behind. These clues were pursued to a jeweler in Cheapside, and it was quickly determined that a young German tailor named Franz Muller was the man who sold the chain for another one and a ring. It was late July by the time Muller had been identified as the main suspect, but he had escaped the country on a sailing ship called the Victoria, headed to New York City.

Fate was against Muller as the winds were not at Victoria’s back, making the journey long at just under six weeks. In the meantime, Inspector Tanner of the Met took a steamship and arrived nearly three weeks ahead of Muller. In New York City, Tanner set his trap with local authorities. Circulars were spread around New York Harbor, and Pilot ships were promised £5 to whoever reached the Victoria first and covertly alerted the captain as to who his passenger was. (The pilot from a pilot ship boards the larger vessel to navigate it into the harbor).

On August 24^th, the Victoria reached the Quarantine Station off Staten Island, and the Health officer and the captain created a ruse. They lined up the passengers from Muller’s class and began calling random names of passengers to examine first. Muller was among them. As he was escorted to a cabin where, unknown to him, he would be arrested, an excursion boat pulled next to the Victoria from which someone yelled, “How are you, Muller the Murder?” Muller had not heard and remained unaware of his peril. In Muller's possession, the authorities found both Briggs’ watch and top hat, either cut down to Muller’s taste or to disguise it.

An extradition hearing was held, and Muller was returned to England with Inspector Tanner. By November, Muller was found guilty. Muller had not been a known criminal, and though the German Legal Protection Society fought hard for his life, it was of no use. A Lutheran Minister said Muller confessed in his last moments, but it remains unclear. On November 14th, 1864, 23-year-old Muller became one of the last people to be publicly hanged in England.

As a result of this crime, new train cars included side corridors, not available to Briggs, who had been closed in with his killer between stations. By 1868, communication cords were added so the railway crew could be contacted. And to keep using old car stock, some railways included peep-holes between car panels called “Muller’s Lights,” presumably to let passengers look out for each other.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Newspaperarchives.com, Newspapers.com

While there, we took a tour of the Indian Agency house, which belonged to John Kinzie, the Indian Agent from 1830 to 1833. An Indian Agent was a government position conferred on people with good diplomatic and, usually, native linguistic skills. (For my Syracuse friends, Ephraim Webster (Webster’s Pond) was the Indian Agent for the Onondaga Nation) It was Kinzie’s job to act as liaison between the U.S. Government and the native people of Wisconsin as they were being removed from their land. According to the site’s interpretation of history, Kinzie was born to the job and well-liked. He immunized the native population against smallpox, took a census of the displaced peoples, which was invaluable for the time, giving us native family names we would not necessarily have otherwise, and paid them for their land.

John’s wife was Juliette Magill Kinzie, who was a New England-born writer and historian. One of their grandchildren was Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of the Girl Scouts. However, hold onto your Thin Mints for a moment because that’s just the good news about the Kinzie’s. I was in Chicago this week for a few days, and to counterbalance museum fatigue, we decided to fill in our knowledge on Chicago history. We listened to a podcast relating the history of Chicago’s first murder. The podcaster said this unfortunate deed was credited to John Kinzie. I paused the video and asked if we all heard and recognized that name before hopping on Wikipedia.

It turns out Kinzie’s father, also named John, was a Canadian fur trader and the “second” man to settle in the Chicago area around 1804. He bought the home of the first settler, John Baptiste Pointe DuSable, likely of Haitian descent. At this time, across the river, Fort Dearborn was constructed under Captain John Whistler, and the birth of a new city had begun. The younger John was born of the elder’s second marriage and was one year old when his family arrived in this location. His father, Kinzie, Sr., became a local leader of the growing settlement. However, he was of dubious character, and in June of 1812, a new war with England began, dubbed the “Second War of Independence.”

By the time of this war, there was an investigation into Kinzie’s behavior of trading with the Native Americans illegally, smuggling, and general corruption. And it appears Jean Lalime, an interpreter at Fort Dearborn, was the snitch. Bizarrely, there was also a claim that Lalime had purchased Baptiste Pointe DuSable’s property a full four years before Kinzie did. The two men quarreled over all of this. Kinzie claimed Lalime tried to shoot him, and that he had no choice but to stab him to death. Lalime’s friends buried him in Kinzie’s front yard to hold him responsible. Was it murder or self-defense? Murder seems likely as Kiinzie ran to Milwaukee, still native land, to let the heat die down. His granddaughter claims he was exonerated, but we do not know more than that he was not officially held accountable except in myth as Chicago’s first murderer. In 1891, bones were found where Lalime would likely have been buried, and they were on display as his in the Museum of Chicago History until around 1952.

I will revisit this story, but curiously, there remains a Kinzie Street in Chicago in this age of cleansing the past. Also, Kate is more interested in museum curation now and telling more complete histories.

James Forrestal was born in 1892 in Beacon, NY. After graduating from high school at 16, he began his working career as a reporter for local papers. He went to Dartmouth, transferred to Princeton, but left before graduating and being voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” He began a career in finance in New York City and left to join the US Navy at the start of World War I.

By the time he left the service, he was a Naval Aviator with the rank of lieutenant. He married, had two sons, and returned to his financial job. There, he became the company’s president and made his fortune. In his spare time, he worked as a publicist for the Democratic Party. This work in part supported the election of President Franklin Roosevelt (my office is still in shambles and will be next week too, but look what one man could do.)

In 1940, Roosevelt made Forrestal Undersecretary of the Navy, and eventually Secretary of the Navy, which was a Cabinet Position until 1949. While the men were on good terms, they did not unilaterally agree with each other, and Forrestal was not a proponent of the New Deal. During his tenure, Forrestal was a hardline anticommunist, even notably taking Senator Joseph McCarthy to lunch. He also introduced a policy of racial integration in the Navy.

In 1947, Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense and continued his push for complete racial integration in all the services, which was achieved in 1949. Under his next boss, President Harry Truman, came a new set of issues and differences of opinion. Forrestal angered many people by saying Palestine should not be partitioned for a new state of Israel. He felt it would be a danger to our national security to anger the Arab Nations and the flow of oil. He worried about the political pressure on Truman and, in his diaries, stated:

“...no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point it could endanger our national security.”

It’s all so timely and weird that I investigated this now. However, Forrestal’s story ends in May 1949 with a fall from a window in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. Utterly exhausted and overworked, Forrestal was forced to resign by Truman in late March that year. He turned in his resignation and went into a daze. Diagnosed with depression and operational fatigue, he was treated with sodium amytal and insulin shock therapy, or basically put into an insulin coma. Unbelievably, he was getting better and reportedly pleased that his brother was to pick him up the next day. Of course, his death was deemed a suicide, but almost no one believes that, given the circumstances.

Enter the conspiracy theories. You can find them online, everything from those who believe he knew too much about the Roswell, NM incident to Zionists to Communists. Knowing what I do about this era in history and the early days of the CIA, I can believe it was murder, but it will never be proved. What a ridiculously sad end for such a productive person, and what a crazy start to the Department of Defense.

Maybe it’s okay that I have serious bouts of inertia and get easily sidetracked by faded old papers. You usually don’t get thrown out of windows for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal

When it was Fergie’s turn a few years later, Diana and I were living in different cities and less compelled to watch. Saying that, I called in sick to work to watch it. It was not the same, but truly lovely because, for some reason, this couple’s love seemed truer, and Princess Diana now had a built-in friend. We had no idea of Andrew and Fergie’s true characters, but we did recognize they were suspect in their freewheeling ways.

In 1988, three months before I moved to New York City for the next decade or so, I took my first trip to London with my friend, Becky. There is a whole story there, but to set the scene, Becky had just turned 30, and I had just turned 22. We met through work at a shopping mall developer. Despite our age difference, we totally connected, and she was so much cooler than I. She introduced me to REM and the joy of black cats.

While our trip deserves its own post, it was the first time I ever saw a Royal in the flesh. Becky and I were having a lunchtime pint when a man tried to recruit us as prostitutes and then told us Princess Margaret was just down the street at a gallery opening. We downed our drinks and ran. We took his card for a laugh in a scrapbook.

When my sister Diana and I were both living in New York City in the 80’s, we would put food back in the grocery store to afford the latest copy of Majesty magazine. We ate up the fantasy and realized the only option for an English prince for us was Edward. Neither of us was interested. There was still JFK jr in the world.

All my friends loved Princess Diana. Maybe because we were Anglophiles working at Laura Ashley’s NYC flagship shop. When Princess Di came to NYC, I went directly from my classes at Hunter College to the Plaza Athénée, where I knew she was staying. It was the first time I ever stalked a famous person. The last, too, because it’s lame. However, I don’t know how I realized she was to be at FAO Schwarz. Maybe the hotel doorman told me. But I also had to work that day, so I gave up and headed to Laura Ashley. When my shift ended, I thought WTF and ran around the corner to the toy store. I saw the top of her blonde head as she marched into the shop to buy gifts for her boys. I was in awe.

Years later, the fairytale fell apart, and Princess Di and Charles divorced. Yet I could not relinquish my love or interest in her. When I was visiting a friend in Princeton, NJ, in the summer of 1997, I grabbed a bunch of magazines with Diana on the cover for us in Penn Station. I distinctly remember us laughing at the “Fat Diana” on the yacht with her questionable choice in a new lover, Dodi Fayed. She was human after all. We didn’t have any idea that within a month we would be watching her funeral.

I was working on the Bachelor Farmers of Ireland: County Kerry calendar with my friend Jonesy in her Queens apartment when the news broke. She worked for NBC and tapped into their newsline. We knew she was dead before the commoners. I took a cab home in the early morning, thinking about how the world had just shifted.

I worked at Newsweek at the time, editing the Letters Column. Every letter to the editor we printed in our abundant coverage of Diana’s death was approved and edited by me, even Mohammed Fayed’s letter. It was cathartic. On the day of her funeral, my friends and I lit candles, drank wine, and served ourselves petit fours to set the tone. Ironically, we cheered on Diana’s brother Charles for attacking the Royal Family. He was a loser, unknown at the time, too

In 1991, I was in Tampa staying with a friend at her cousin’s condo. It was bizarre, and we were only there because we craved the warmth of the sun and had a free room. What we didn’t know was that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were staying on the Royal Yacht just down the road from us. The Queen was in town to knight General Norman Schwarzkopf for Desert Storm. We found this out when we went to seek out nightlife at the nearby mall. Again, that is its own story.

When I moved to London in 1999, before or as I realized I was being dumped by the man I came there for, I took myself to tour the newly opened Buckingham Palace. It was sacred ground, and I felt every bit of that. Dumped later that year, friends from my time at Newsweek came to visit me. One of them had a connection to a soldier in the Horse Guards, and we were invited to take a tour. After a dramatic time at the door trying to explain who we were there to see with a young soldier sharply ordering us to “Step Back” and banging his rifle into the ground threateningly with every step we took forward, we finally were admitted entrance. Our soldier friend made us tea in a scuzzy kitchen and told us the troops were already practicing the Queen Mum’s funeral. In his words, they were all ready to be “suited and booted.”

The Queen Mum died in 2002, the year I got married--a year before I left England. My friend Mark asked me to join him in the queue to say goodbye to her. I declined. I don’t know why I relinquished this opportunity, but I didn’t think it was the best use of my time.

Years later, my English mother-in-law took me on a day trip to Buckingham Palace. It was much the same as my first visit, except I was with her and her gloriously proper Englishness. The garden was now open, as well as a tearoom and gift shop. I loved my day out with her.

When Prince Harry met Meghan, I was of the common mindset that she was the second coming of Wallis Simpson. I do not feel that anymore. I think she saved him. When I read 90% of Harry’s biography, I realized how human Harry is, right down to his first-person syndrome. It was a biography after all. I am team Harry/Meghan, but my English relatives are not. A young step-in-law told me, “I spent a weekend with Harry, and he was not good.” Could any of us withstand such scrutiny over a two-day exposure? Sod this kid.

In 2025, I toured Buck House again with Jonesy, who was still a diehard Royalist. However, I knew I was beyond them. I like Ann; she’s crazy tough, but mostly they are not pertinent. I had concluded that what drove my fantasies in the 80s did not sustain what is happening today. I saw the Queen again, I must admit. Just before I moved back to the States, I was working at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. She and then Prince Andrew came for some reason. Knowing I was a ridiculously royal-loving American, my boss put me at the back door where she entered. I was so close to her and Andrew that I could have bear hugged either one of them, but they did not see me. That told me everything. It was a performance, and I was not part of the play. I was over them and the pretense.

Occasionally, I still follow royal this and that, but I really don’t care if they implode. I have been a Royalist for the sake of tourism long enough. This is a rare instance in which I can say I’m a Republican.

Joe was the type of character that some men enjoyed pulling pranks on. It may have been that Joe gave the best reactions, the funniest faces, the silliest responses, but his nature seemed to be a magnet for the somewhat bullying behavior. Joe was untrained, but a hard worker. He was uneducated but interested in the world. He had opinions, but they were offbeat. His mere existence was amusing to others because of his strangeness. He likely wasn’t very intelligent, which is what made him fun to laugh at for these men, but he was a good man despite all that life had handed him.

Though most of his youth was spent in St. Joseph’s, at some point, Joe was adopted out to a violent farmer who beat him. For years after that, Joe was a drifter, finding work as he went. However, when he was in his early 30s, around 1915, he arrived in Madison, WI, and something about the city anchored him. Joe married a slightly older woman in 1917, though I’m not sure anything about their relationship except that Vina came from a large family in Portage and seems to have used her maiden name. Joe implied her family mistreated her, but I have no proof, and by 1925, the year she died of cancer, she was living and working at the Oconomowoc Sanitarium and not with Joe. Reports vary as to whether she was a cook or a trained nurse.

For most of Joe’s life on Madison’s eastside, he was the object of ridicule. Elaborate jokes were played on him, such as naming him “Mayor of Schenk’s Corners,” the neighborhood they all lived in. The local fireman set up a pretend radio studio and let Joe earnestly deliver a 2-hour-long political address to no one. His neighbors also gave him a pretend badge and called him the Fire Marshal. It was puerile and sad, but after Joe’s wife passed away, his sadness made him less fun for them to bully, and the men’s relationship changed.

Urban Meuer began to learn Joe’s story and wanted to help Joe have a nicer existence. With other local businessmen, fundraisers were held to overhaul a two-room cottage on Winnebago Street and gift it to Joe. From December 1925 to February 1927, Joe lived in the little house provided by his new friends. However, a report in the paper said Joe was not taking care of himself. He would go without food to keep up payments for a life insurance policy he held with St. Joseph’s Asylum for Boys as his beneficiary.

There was also a question of the mortgage on his “new” home. In November of 1926, more fundraisers were held to pay off the $150 mortgage. Yet something was not working. I liken it to Oprah gifting cars to people who could not afford the insurance on them. The economics of keeping Joe housed were perhaps more than these men expected, and housing didn’t end Joe’s problems.

The local paper keenly followed Joe’s plight, but always in a two-dimensional way. They spoke of the personality more than the person. “Old Joe is at it again,” was the implication when it was reported that the local businessmen decided to remove Joe to the Dane County Poor Farm in February 1927. Joe was furious and hurt. He stayed at this new accommodation for less than two months before he walked back to the eastside to find work in a tobacco warehouse.

At some point, Joe briefly returned to his little cottage, but the moratorium on pranking him was over. One day, some men filled his stovepipe with waste, and when Joe came home and lit a fire, his cottage filled with smoke. Joe grabbed a suitcase and claimed to be going to China. It is said he never returned to the little home, but he did remain in the area.

No specific names of who did this to Joe were listed because it was assumed to be funny anyway. It seems highly unlikely that Meuer and Schenk, who spearheaded Joe’s housing, would have then gone on to destroy it. However, in 1927, Meuer was making it big in the oil business and likely didn’t have much more time to look after Joe. Schenk remained Joe’s friend, though, and they had a funny relationship. Joe tended to blame everything wrong in the world on Schenk, even telling the police that Schenk had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

Tragically, in 1932, Joe was hit and killed by a car. Schenk was one of his pallbearers. He was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery next to his wife, where I found his stone and story years ago. Only now have I tried to untangle it, and I’m still left wondering if Joe would consider his surname as being spelled wrong.

“Sweet Jay-sus, you’re joking?” I gasped when Ferret announced Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were coming to Rat’s Castle for a private tour! While most of my colleagues appeared unbothered by the hoopla, even feigning the impending event to be an undesired nuisance, at least Charlie was as thrilled as I was. Ferret said Charlie and I could work whatever day she came. The working plan was for Rupert to come down and lead the royals on a very brief tour of Hither Heatham Hall. The Queen would then present him with a painting of the Great Hall that Sir Reginald gifted to her father, the king, years ago. Basically, the Queen was coming to return Ratty’s gift for the first anniversary of our opening. I thought it was really just the queen cleaning out her closets, dressed up as generosity, but excitement for Charlie and me. The whole plan was really just like a floating dandelion seed looking for a place to land with no guarantee if it would root or rot. yelling unseen from another room for comedic value, was on-site again. His arrival made the atmosphere decidedly strained. Not because Keith was a hard ass, certainly not with me, but because he was an unknown quantity. No one was sure how to interact with him. With Ferret, we respected and teased him in equal measure. Ferret was good at his job but also straddled the professional divide to be a friend. Keith was neither friend nor foe. Therefore, it was momentarily intimidating when I

With the possibility of such a big visit in the works, Keith, who was so rarely seen in the building that he reminded me of a sitcom characterarrived at work one day, and Gemma told me Keith wanted to see me in his office. She said Keith had an excellent opportunity for me through a shit-eating smirk.

I knocked softly on the door frame of Keith’s open office door. When he saw it was me, he beamed like a lighthouse. “Take a seat, I was wondering how you were getting on with the job?” Before I could respond, he jumped right to the real point of my summons. Keith had to make a “secret visitor” trip to the Tower of London and asked if I would join him. “You know, it would be good for your work experience,” he quickly added. I had been to the Tower last summer, when I was still trying to fill my days before school started, and knew once was never going to be enough. I put it in my calendar, and I was high on the plan until I later asked Gemma who else Keith had taken on such outings. No one. Shit, was this a date?

A few days later, Keith drove us to Greenwich and suggested we take a boat along the Thames to the Tower like real tourists. It was a beautiful day with blue skies, but I sensed a romantic move. I was on guard, ready to kabash any lovey-dovey effort. Despite his title, Keith was not part of my castle family; Ferret was the paternal figure. Keith was the powerful uncle whose favor could cause rivalries among his nieces and nephews. Crikey, I read too much history. I knew too well that any whiff of Keith liking me or that I might like him back (which I did not) disturbed the world I was happily inhabiting. People would tease me like Gemma already had or resent me if they thought Keith preferred me in some inequitable way.

On the boat, Keith made small talk, asking generic get-to-know-you/first-date questions about my life and telling me about himself. He grew up in Canterbury and had a twin sister who lived in Australia. I snuck a few glimpses at him when we weren’t talking to try to read him. He wasn’t my bad looking, but he wasn’t my handsome either. I decided to stop trying to identify underlying machinations and relax. And, once on the Tower’s grounds, the awkwardness felt in the confines of the river commute lifted, and we had fun together. Aside from not holding hands, Keith and I probably looked like a couple to anyone who observed us. We laughed from the first room to the last, not so much at the imprisonments and executions but at Henry VIII’s delusional codpiece and a sign I found by a five-foot stone statue of Sir Walter Raleigh. It read, “Please do not touch, lick, or climb the statue!”

“If they made the sign, they must have needed it,” Keith noted. The statue was a good height for hitching a piggyback ride, but licking him? Some things are intuitively not worth licking or kissing, including the Blarney Stone, which I once heard locals pee on for fun.

I showed Keith how to see the Crown Jewels properly by riding the conveyor belt twice, once on each side. It is the only way to see the gems from all angles. Keith joked they were a right sight better than Lord Ratty’s gems. Rupert and Keith had been trying to procure some to display at the castle, but they were proving elusive.

At the end of the day, Keith asked if I wanted to grab a drink, making the comfort I’d built up over the tour evaporate. I didn’t want to encourage him in any way, so I told him. I had a paper due that I hadn’t started yet. It sounded like a polite lie, but it was true. Keith seemed unperturbed, so maybe I had got it all wrong. I didn’t know who my love would be; I only knew who it wouldn’t be.

********************

About 15 years ago, a sign in a ladies’ room stall told me to “Check out Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety, Stress, and Depression.” How did they know one member of their target audience would be in that cubicle? It was a sign I finally stopped to consider. My anxiety had bubbled alongside me since I was 18 years old, but up until that point, it was my problem alone. Now, I was a mother, and my anxiety flared because so much was now out of my control, and it was no longer just about me. How would I stay collected and model healthy behavior for my child? I didn’t understand meditation beyond the notion of gurus, third eyes, and Lotus positions, so really, I didn’t understand it at all. Before I saw that sign, I had taken out a set of meditation tapes from the library, but found them too difficult to follow. It was never going to become helpful, much less a habit, that route. I needed to be taught.

The sign in the loo was for UW Psychiatry’s Mindfulness Class. They were offering two 8-week sessions: one for those suffering from anxiety and one for a group of people with depression. I was interviewed by the teacher, given a generalized anxiety diagnosis, and had to fight every instinct that told me I was “better” than this cornball-touchy-feely nonsense. I was so resistant to group therapy to overcome a naturally occurring bodily reaction that has helped humankind to survive thus far that I almost didn’t go to the first class. Why was the body’s security system broken in so many of us now? It seemed like a fad, a buzzword, a Chakra opening without an invitation. But I was struggling, and I needed help.

There were at least 30 of us in a circle of chairs, no surprise, all looking anxious. We surreptitiously sized each other up as we let our defenses down. Over the next few weeks, we all learned to take pauses, to listen, to accept “clouds” and to focus on our breathing. “Always the breath.” Something wonderful happened during that time. Not only did I learn to meditate, which is a practice, not a perfection, but I learned the power of the group. Because we were all there for a unified purpose, it made it easier to let go and lean into the learning moments. And we did learn the beauty of a three-minute pause, how to eat mindfully, thinking of where the food we ate came from, who planted it, who harvested it, and who prepared it. We learned about monkey mind and about people like Sharon Salzberg and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Nearing the end of the program, one woman, now a dear friend, alarmed by the potential loss of progress and structure, worried aloud about what we would do without this class. “That’s up to you,” was the response. Thank goodness she collected the names of everyone who wanted to maintain a practice. Seven of us united, and as any group would, we have evolved through the years, adding a few more to our number, but our core remains the same, and our ability to call on each other will never dissipate. We are connected for life through love and anxiety.

Through the years, different formations of us have attended various retreats. We’ve created our own weekends away to practice together and generally trusted each other’s leads with local offerings. This is how three of us “Sangha Sisters” ended up at a “Women’s Rest Retreat” yesterday. When I read the emailed agenda in preparation, I thought, “This is a bit light.” It was as if I had not taken the title or purpose of the gathering on board. Laura had said, “Retreat?” and I replied, “How much?” On paper, the plans for the day evoked a day in the life of a Kindergartener with space for “dreaming, napping, drawing, and imagination.” We were told to bring layers of clothes, blankets, and pillows—I could only hope we were building a fort.

What transpired was nothing short of bliss, and before you think you could do this on your own, I assure you, you cannot to this extent. All around me, women of all ages gave each other permission to rest guiltlessly in stillness, and we did. And we smiled, and we laughed, and we breathed. We did not think about moving the laundry along. We did not make shopping lists. We did not think about all the things we hold together; instead, we sat still, we fell asleep, and the world didn’t fall apart.

As we milled around quietly or napped on our mats in this priceless free time, a gentle snowfall of downy flakes began to cover the world outside. It was not the first nor the last snow of the season, but it was considerably the best. It was the kind of snow that snugs you down tighter and tells you as an adult, “Tea and a book would be nice right now.” But because of the environment created for us at the retreat, the snow also transported us to childhood when school was canceled, and snowsuits stiffened us into Michelin Men, and we wouldn’t stop our play until long after our socks slipped down into our boots and our mittens grew soggy from scooping tunnels.

In rereading this post, ever the self-skeptic, I think it reeks of privilege and wellness jargon peppered with hints of “Chair Yoga” and “Tai Chi Walking” going on just off-screen. But it is the truth. It has taken me years to accept that Mindfulness is one of the best things I ever learned, and through it, the ability to be open to other ideas, such as “Normalizing Guiltfree Rest.” I couldn’t recommend it enough. You could even make yourself a pillow fort.

As soon as the semester ended, I started working more hours and would be full-time at the castle by May. Charlie was my closest friend. We planned our mutual days off to visit other historic properties. Heritage workers visiting heritage sites couldn’t be considered a busman’s holiday if you loved your job. Charlie drove a bright blue VW Polo that had been his mother’s before he moved to London. It got us all around, and our first trip was to Hever Castle, Ann Boleyn’s childhood home. It was impressive to be in a house where things weren’t replicated but were the real deal. We took a comprehensive tour of the house and gardens before settling down to a ploughman’s lunch in a nearby pub. After that, we found a cute little antique shop to poke around in. It’s where Charlie found a lovely opal tie pin to add to his collection of tie pins and watch fobs. Loving the idea of collecting, especially while living abroad, I bought an Edwardian sapphire-diamond ring, thinking rings would be the treasure I collected. It cost £100, and I adored it. I didn’t mind spending down my severance money if it meant I had jewels—even small, tasteful middle-class ones. Besides, I was going to be making more overtime soon.

Isla MacDougal was head of hospitality at Rat’s Castle, though she strictly referred to the site as Hither Heatham Hall to her clients. The site’s proper name worked much better when promoting it as a wedding venue. Up to then, Isla and I only crossed paths when she gave house tours to prospective brides. For the most part, Isla was glued to her phone in the office she shared with Gemma. She had a very pretty, fresh face, and it was obvious her shiny black hair and light brown eyes instilled anxious brides with a serene sense of trust. I liked her, but Isla was a married mother of a little girl and never mingled with staff unless we worked her events.

Two weeks after the film fiasco, I worked the first wedding of the season. It was a lovely, though extremely long, day. Custodial wedding responsibilities included overseeing the caterers and musicians as they set up and broke down their equipment. It also meant protecting the house’s contents and fabric from guests. We ensur

ed that floral arrangements were not leaking, there was no red wine to stain the Great Hall floor, and all room doors were shut to deter people from entering. The experience was comparable to hosting a party you were not invited to and suspecting all the guests secretly wanted destroy your property. It was worse than Entrance Hall duty because there was much more territory to oversee, and these visitors weren’t just casual day trippers. I could sense that people who hired the castle for events were dangerous because they had a sense of entitlement mixed with alcohol.

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