Rosemary Clooney Look-Alike, an Old Photo Captures My Imagination

Posted on January 8, 2026 by youngv2015

Rosemary Clooney look-alike, circa 1950s

During the holidays I was sifting through old family photos when I came across a picture of a young woman in an elegant tea-length dress, the kind she might have worn to a prom. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the whisper of sheer filmy material wrapped around her shoulders and trailing down her back. From her classic pearl jewelry to her satin-sheen shoes, she’s ready for the red carpet.

She looks like Rosemary Clooney: the hair, the face, the dress. If I hadn’t watched White Christmas a few days before, I might not have noticed the resemblance. But because I had, I found the similarity uncanny. Was the young woman in the photo trying to look like Miss Clooney or some other movie star of the time? Adoring fans often copy the fashions and hairstyles of their favorite celebrities. In 1976, after figure skater Dorothy Hamill won an Olympic gold medal, many fans rushed to their hairdressers, asking for the Dorothy Hamill haircut. The graceful movement of Hamill’s hair as she skated across the ice was nearly as beautiful as her figure skating. Five years later Prince Charles would become engaged to Lady Diana, who also had gorgeous haircuts throughout the years. Once again women rushed to their hairdressers, this time with photos of Diana’s most recent hairstyle.

I hadn’t seen White Christmas in years, but when my sisters and I were kids, we loved the movie. We made sure to watch it every Christmas season, along with Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. We had one chance to see these specials during the holidays. If we missed it, we had to wait until the next year. I hate to sound like an old person whining about how tough it was when I was young, but we didn’t have anything on demand. There were no streaming services, no VCRs or DVDs, and no marathon runs of shows playing over and over. If we missed one of our favorite Christmas shows, we had to wait until the next year to see it. We had four channels: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Our neighbors had the same four channels, but they had a bigger antenna than ours, so they picked up a channel out of Chicago which ran old TV shows. My sisters and I were Grinch-green envious, and we often spent time at their house watching reruns of old sitcoms and westerns.

I don’t recognize the Rosemary Clooney look-alike in this photo. I sent a copy of it to my two aunts, but neither of them remembered her. She might’ve been the child of one of my grandmother’s friends or relatives. She could’ve been one of my dad’s girlfriends, but the photo was taken at Rainbo Studios in St. Louis, Missouri, and my father grew up in northern Wisconsin. Still, there were lots of families who came from faraway places to spend all or part of the summer on the lakes in the north woods of Wisconsin. Many of the local teens had summer romances with the vacationing teens. I did some research on Rainbo Studios and learned that it operated during the 1950s.

All I’ve learned about the girl is that she put on a pretty dress and had her picture taken at a now defunct studio in St. Louis, Missouri.

Studio photo of Rosemary Clooney, 1954, the year *White Christmas* was released

“I wish someone would’ve written a name and year on the back of this photo,” I said to my husband. Then added, “I should write the names of people I recognize on the backs of the photos that aren’t labeled.”

“Who’s going to care after you?” he asked. He has a point. When I’m gone, what will become of these old photos? Pictures of grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, cousins and shirt-tail cousins, not to mention the friends and neighbors who appear in some of the photos. I don’t know most of them, but I do know some of them.

These photos will eventually end up in the garbage. I hate writing that sentence, but unless someone in my family develops an interest in family history that will probably be the case. I’ve worked on some family history. I wrote a book with my mother-in-law about her life, and I re-typed and updated a family history that my grandpa George’s cousin wrote. I’ve written about some of the family history on my mother’s side too. But I’m a short story and essay writer, so I spend most of my spare time writing fiction and essays.

I won’t be the one to throw the old photos away. I love them, and occasionally, I look at the people in the pictures and imagine their stories. What happened in the days before and after their pictures were snapped? What were their dreams and hopes? How did their lives play out? I know the answers to some of these questions, but mostly I don’t. Sometimes one of my aunts can tell me about the people in a photo and may also remember something about the day the photo was taken. But often they can’t because they either weren’t born yet, or they were small children at the time.

I’ll never know the name of the Rosemary Clooney look-alike, but on the back of her photo I wrote, 1950s. It’s all I have to offer her. Somewhere, someone knows who she is. She could still be alive. For now, I’m keeping the photo on my writing desk. Now and then, I hold it in my hand and wonder, “Was she a Rosemary Clooney fan? Where was she going? What was the rest of her life like? How did her picture end up in my grandparents’ box of photos?” Perhaps I’ll hit upon an idea and be inspired to write a short story about her. Of course, the answers to my questions will be fiction, leaving the real young woman a mystery.

I’ve taken great care to write names and dates on the backsides of the photos I’ve snapped over the years and put into albums, but eventually, the photos of my family and friends will end up in boxes, becoming memories without stories. Ultimately, they will end up in a landfill.

And what about the photos on our phones?

Sledding on a Cold Day with Two Happy Grandchildren

Posted on January 2, 2026 by youngv2015

Evan coming up the hill and Charlie going down the hill. Because the weather was about 15 degrees colder than the day before, we had the hill to ourselves.

On Monday and Tuesday, both warm winter days, my grandkids and I drove by Central Park numerous times while running errands. Not the famous 843-acre Central Park in New York City, but the Central Park in my hometown, around ten acres in size. Each time we drove by, we saw children sledding down the hills at the western side of the park.

“Can we go sledding there?” Evan, the nine-year-old, asked each time we passed it.

“If you bring your snow pants with you tomorrow, I’ll take you sledding,” I said. “But it’s supposed to be below zero in the morning.”

On Wednesday, the grandkids came with their snow pants, and the morning temperature was actually fourteen degrees, so after breakfast we stowed the sleds in my van and went sledding. I wore long underwear under my jeans, thick wool socks inside my boots, and a wool sweater under my down coat. To complete my winter ensemble, I donned a thick stocking cap, slipped my hands into a pair of lined mittens, and wrapped a scarf around my neck. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough, and that I would be cold while standing on the hill in the park as the wind circled around me.

“What if they have sleds there we can use?” Evan asked as we drove to the park.

The parks & rec department in my town does a wonderful job.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I didn’t believe the city would spend money to provide sleds, only to worry about them being pilfered or broken. But when we arrived at the hill, there was a rack filled with sleds and topped with a tiny poem: “Use a Sled, Return it When You’re Done and Everyone Can Have a Little Fun!”

I’d been the one with the jaded heart, but my city’s parks & rec department had faith in its young citizens. “Look, Evan,” I said, pointing at the sign, “you were right.” My grandsons mostly used their own sleds, but occasionally borrowed one of the saucer sleds from the rack.

Peals of laughter and shouts of joy filled the air as they sped down the hill. I pulled my phone from my pocket to take some pictures and to look at the time — only five minutes had passed and I was already freezing. At that moment, as if to mock me, Old Man Winter exhaled a powerful gust of frigid air. I huddled next to a pine tree, but the narrow trunk did nothing to protect me from the wind’s icy breath. I wanted to go home, but anything less than a solid thirty minutes on the hill, and my grandkids would be disappointed. They were having a great time.

I decided I had two choices. I could stand on the hill and freeze, or I could hit the slopes. I placed a blue sled at the top of the hill and looked down at it.

“Nana, are you going to sled down the hill?” one of the grandkids asked.

“Yes,” I answered. I gazed at the sled and remembered how much I loved sledding when I was young. Plus, there were no adults around (like my husband) to ask, “Do you think that’s a good idea at your age?”

With grins on their faces and anticipation in their hearts, my grandsons waited to see Nana “bomb” down the hill. They knew I could do it.

Successfully, but not too gracefully, I lowered myself into the sled. I pushed off with my hands and raced down the hill, bobbing up and down on the slightly uneven terrain. By the time I used my feet as brakes to stop the sled before reaching a line of trees along a frozen creek, I felt much warmer.

Was it the thrill of the ride that pumped blood through my veins and warmed my body? Or was it the memory of getting a toboggan for Christmas as a girl and using it to sled at Whitnall Park throughout my childhood and teenage years? Either way I was ecstatic as I walked back up the hill with my sled in tow. I wasn’t cold anymore. The key to being outside in winter is to keep moving and have fun.

I went down the hill many times. I felt ageless, still capable of doing something I did when I was young. Dopamine filled my brain, and I was over-the-moon happy.

We stayed for forty minutes. On our way back to the car, Evan asked if we could come back in the afternoon.

“Sure,” I said, and I meant it. I wasn’t just saying it in the moment, figuring I’d find a way to back out later on. Sometimes we do that as adults. But like my grandkids, I wanted to go sledding again, even if it meant the dishes didn’t get done or supper would be late.

I fed the boys lunch then took them to the library for a kids’ craft hour. I went to the grocery store for ingredients so I could make chicken enchiladas after our second round of sledding.

We returned to Central Park just before three o’clock, and stayed for more than a half hour. This time I didn’t wait to get cold. I grabbed a sled immediately and began zooming down the hill, loving the speed and the winter’s air that filled my lungs, caressed my face, and returned me to my youth.

Sledding with my grandkids was the most fun I’d had in a very long time.

I made a New Year’s resolution to behave like a child more often.

Final Approach, Home from Scotland, September 23, 2025

Posted on December 5, 2025 by youngv2015

Final Approach into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, September 23, 2025

The pilot’s voice comes over the PA, asking passengers and flight attendants to prepare for the final approach.

If I’m reading, I close my book. If I’m resting, I open my eyes. If the window shade is down, I raise it. From the moment of the pilot’s announcement until the wheels touch the runway, and the force from the plane’s thrust-reverse system pushes me back against my seat, I will keep watch out the window.

Out the window I’m met by thick, irregular shaped clouds spattered through the Midwestern skies over Minneapolis-St. Paul and its suburbs. I have a window seat. I always try to have a window seat. Considering I don’t like to be boxed into a space, this is unusual for me. But instead of feeling claustrophobic and trapped, I’m comforted by the world outside the window, even if I’m thousands of feet above the earth. The pilot asks passengers to fasten their seatbelts, stow their trays, and return their seats to an upright position. Flight attendants make their final walks up and down the aisle.

My love of the window seat on a plane began as a young child. I would fly with my father, who had a private pilot’s license. Over the years he owned a series of mostly single-engine airplanes, so every seat had a window. If my mother wasn’t on the plane, and she rarely was, I rode in the front passenger seat. Views surrounded me. Flying north and south across Wisconsin, I was mesmerized by patchworked parcels of land seamed together with ribbons of road. Rivers meandered and lakes nestled in the landscape. Houses and buildings, cows and horses looked like toys left behind by children. And I liked to imagine the cars and trucks had been wound by hand and set upon the roads. Every time I flew with my father and he landed the plane and shut it down, he’d declare, “Cheated death again.”

Our approach into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is a series of wide turns creating the illusion we are flying in slow motion as we descend through billowy clouds. The plane banks, then banks again. Each turn provides a view of the earth below then a view of the clouds above. I’m transcended. I’m fearless. I don’t worry about the plane falling from the sky. I’m not watching out the window in a hope to divert disaster. I’m watching out the window because I’m enchanted by the most beautiful final approach I think I’ve ever experienced. I’m not worried about the landing. If something goes wrong, I’ve had a seat to a stunning view after a lovely trip to Scotland.

As a child, I knew planes crashed, but I never worried when my father flew his small plane. I took my first commercial flight when I was seventeen, a trip to Europe with other students and chaperones. I don’t remember being afraid. But by the time I was in my early twenties, commercial flying scared me. There was a spate of commercial crashes from the 1970s through the 1980s. And there was the echo of my father’s words, “Cheated death again.”

On one of the plane’s banks, I see a shimmering steel-colored river reflecting the sun and clouds. I wonder if it’s the Mississippi or the Minnesota. In a final crescendo, the sky has become a cobalt blue, and shades of industrial gray dance across the land and river.

In my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I avoided commercial flying. I rarely traveled to see my family because it meant getting on a jet. When I did agree to fly to see my parents or siblings, dread stalked me. In the weeks and days before my flight, I’d wake in the middle of the night certain my plane would crash. My dread inflated like a balloon until I thought it would burst. Then my departure date would arrive, and I’d head to the airport. Caught up in waves of people coming and going, I, too, would become excited to be going somewhere. My fear would dissipate. I’d board the plane, buckle my seatbelt, open a book, and read. When the plane started moving, I’d look out the window. (Most crashes happen on takeoffs and landings.) I’d watch the plane roll down the runway, lift off the ground, and clear its controlled airspace. Then, and only then, I’d return to my book.

As we near the runway cleared for our landing, I know the plane is traveling at speeds faster than I ever drive, but that’s not how it feels from the air. I’m suspended in time and space. I realize I’m not in a hurry to land. I’d like to ask the pilot to go around one more time. I have just returned from Scotland, home to some of the world’s most beautiful scenery. But the views on this final approach rival the scenes of Scotland, not because they are similar, but because they are so different. I’m home. In my Midwestern part of the United States. A land with its own innate and man-made beauty.

By the time I was in my late twenties, my fear of flying spread to small planes like my father flew. After I married and had children, my father would fly his small plane from Arizona to Wisconsin every summer. He’d attend the Experimental Aircraft Association show in Oshkosh, visit friends in southern Wisconsin, then fly into the Bong Airport in Superior. He’d call me from the air, and I’d load my children and dogs into the car and meet him at the airport. I’d help him tie down his plane, a ritual we completed many times when I was young. At some point during his visit, he’d take my boys and me for a flight. At first, I was okay with this, but as each year passed, my fear of flying in a small plane surpassed my fear of flying in commercial jets. I knew the statistics. Small private planes were more dangerous. At least, with my children in the plane, he didn’t say, “Cheated death again.”

The flight attendants have all taken their seats. Our Delta Flight 1127 levels, ready for landing. I don’t experience a moment of panic.

Last February Delta Flight 4819 landed upside down on a runway in Toronto. No one died. My mother, who knew I’d be flying Delta to Scotland, lost no time in phoning to tell me about the inverted landing. “It’s comforting to know, “I replied, “that I’ve chosen an airline whose pilots know how to land a jet upside down.”

Up until our final descent, the jet engines droned quietly. But now just before we land, pilots adjust flaps and slats to increase drag in order to slow the plane even more. A loud rumble fills my ears. The wheels of the plane hit the ground and the spell is broken. The pilots reverse thrust and a deafening roar assaults my ears, and I’m pressed into the back of my seat.

One year, before my father came to visit, I asked my sister to tell him that I didn’t want to go up in his plane anymore. That I couldn’t handle the weeks of anxiety before the flight. My father came and went and never mentioned a plane ride. Later, on another one of his visits, he told me about a friend of his who had flown for years for work and for recreation. “Gary,” Dad said. “can no longer get on a plane, private or commercial.” I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes, my back to my father. I didn’t turn around. He continued, “Gary said he’s flown for decades without an accident, and he feels he’s used up all his luck.” (Gary felt his time for “cheating death once again” had run out.) I said nothing, and my father said nothing else. I believe he told me this story because he knew I had a fear of flying, and this was his way of saying he understood. One of his occasional moments of empathy.

I still won’t get on a private plane, but I don’t worry about flying commercially, or take offs, or landings any more. My father’s refrain, “cheated death again,” doesn’t play through my head. Perhaps because I’m of a certain age, I’ve come to realize it’s a waste of energy, worrying about something I can’t control. Sometimes the only way to get somewhere is to fly. My mother can’t fly anymore but there are places she’d like to go. Her world has shrunk. Perhaps one day, I won’t be able to fly anymore either, so I’ll go while I can. And instead, I’ll fret about getting stranded in an airport or worse, getting stranded in a plane on the tarmac.

We taxi up to the gate, our plane is an hour late getting in (some mechanical thing in Boston), but I still have plenty of time to catch the airport shuttle for home.

Shoe Shopping Chaos and Joy

Posted on August 25, 2025 by youngv2015

A pair for hiking and a pair for walking

After it was all said and done. After I’d decided on two pairs of shoes to purchase, and the mother and daughter who were shoe shopping alongside me had decided on three pairs of shoes between the two of them, the sales clerk reordered the chaos on the floor. She checked the labels and sizes to make sure two shoes (a left and a right) of the same size went into a box with the corresponding size, style, and brand. The young sales clerk, maybe twenty years old, was swift and accurate.

After the clerk walked away to meet the mother and daughter at the checkout, my husband said he was surprised that the sales clerk had let the area become so messy.

“Oh, no,” I said. “This is how women shop for shoes.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave that look people give when they want to say, “Wow! That’s just crazy” without saying, “Wow! That’s just crazy.”

He didn’t know women have rules for shoe shopping. He just picks out one pair of shoes at a time, asks for his size, and tries them on. But women circle the store and gather several different types of shoes before approaching the sales clerk.

“I’ve been shopping for shoes for years, with my mother, with friends, and this is how we’ve always done it,” I said.

I explained all this to my husband as I walked around the store in a pair of shoes I was still auditioning. I stopped in front of the shoe mirror to see how they looked from the side. I walked up to my husband and asked, “Do these shoes make my feet look big?”

He laughed. “Of course,” he said.

I laughed because he got the joke.

Women really do have their own set of rules for shoe shopping. We try one pair then another pair. Maybe try them again. We ask for different sizes. We look at more shoes, and try those. And while we do this, the unboxed shoes stay on the floor. Unless we specifically tell the clerk that a pair of shoes are definitely a no go. A good shoe sales clerk knows this. It’s not chaos. We need to be able to see the whole array of shoes in front of us.

I haven’t had so much fun buying shoes in a long time. The mother and daughter and I had a good time visiting with each other while we tried on shoes. We laughed and joked together. The mother and I bought the same shoes. “If I see those shoes out in public, I’ll recognize you,” she said.

Best of all, the sales clerk was a joy. She was knowledgeable about the shoes in the store. She kept all our requests for different styles and sizes straight while she helped all three of us at the same time. She treated us like our quest for the perfect shoe was important. She understood how women shop for shoes.

Bees, Roses, A Water Fountain, Ice Cream, and Rocks on the Beach

Posted on August 23, 2025 by youngv2015

A happy pollinator on the first flowers we encountered

Two years ago I took my four grandkids to a rose garden. We smelled the roses, walked along Lake Superior, ate ice cream, and tossed rocks in the water. Then we did it again last year. So, of course, we had to do it again this year. It’s a tradition now. When my grandkids are grown up and old, they will say to each other, “Remember when Nana took us to the rose garden every summer, and we’d get ice cream then throw rocks in the lake?” Just like I recall my nana taking us to George Webb, Sherman Park, and Capital Drive, and letting us use her galvanized steel wash tubs as swimming pools on hot days.

Can you find the pollinator in the rose?

We arrived at the rose garden, which also has other flowers. We spotted bees slurping nectar. My oldest grandchild took photos of the bees and roses. I took photos of the bees and roses. My other three grandkids watched the bees and smelled the roses. We all love the flowers and bees. I like to refer to bees as pollinators, like it’s a royal title and the bees belong to a noble class. Watching pollinators feed on flowers gives me hope for the world. If you want to help create hope, plant something pollinators like, and make sure it’s pesticide free.

As we smelled the roses, we took care to look for bees before sniffing. We didn’t want our noses stung, or egads, to inhale a bee. We visited the rose garden a couple of weeks later than we normally do, so we missed the peak bloom. But the roses that had waited for us didn’t disappoint.

My grandkids love the functioning water fountain, a focal point in the garden. I handed out pennies for wishes. They splashed their hands in the water. One of them found a small, round, flat stone painted with the message Make a Wish. I think more than one of them would have liked to climb into the fountain. Kids and water just go together. The summer I was twelve, my siblings and I spent three weeks with our grandma Olive. Every day we begged her to take us to Bluegill Lake so we could swim. The fountain in the rose garden was originally located in a different part of the city, where it supplied fresh water for horses in the days before automobiles. Everything changes.

After spending time with the roses, we headed down the Lakewalk, and enjoyed the views of Lake Superior. Later, on our way back, my youngest grandchild stopped at several of the park benches and assessed the views, commenting on each one. Perhaps, he is a budding travel writer.

On our walk from the gardens to the ice cream shop, we always stop at a large stone stage. Flanked with two stout turrets, it has a castle vibe. My grandkids ran across the stage and through the hidden passageways behind it, then suddenly appeared once again. Their laughter and excited shouts to one another rang through the air. I thought about Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” followed by his musings about the “seven ages” of life from infancy to old age. I stood on the stage with my grandkids, yet apart from them, separated by several “ages” of life.

The cooing sounds of pigeons who nest in the nooks of a stone wall along the railroad tracks captured the attention of my grandkids. One grandchild was impressed by the range of their colors and the variety of their markings. And the other three started a cooing conversation with the pigeons. I have to say, the cooing sounds my grandkids made were impressive, but finally I said, “What if the pigeons hear your coos as a battle cry and attack?” Yes, you got it, I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I saw the movie once, years ago, and I’m still miffed Hitchcock killed off Suzanne Pleshette’s character in the movie! She was one of my favorite actors.

If you asked my grandkids what they liked best about our adventure, they would probably say the ice cream. It’s what I would have said when I was their age. The picnic tables at the ice cream shop were new and so was the chocolate mint ice cream used to make my malt. For thirty years I’ve been ordering chocolate mint malts, made with the same minty ice cream filled with thin, flat pieces of dark chocolate. This year the ice cream was a little too minty and the thin, flat pieces of chocolate were replaced by mini chocolate chips. It was good, but not as good as it used to be. Next year I’m going to order a different flavored malt. Maybe I will find a new favorite. The clerk at the shop said they could no longer get the same kind of chocolate mint ice cream. All things change. But don’t ask me to say change is good when it comes to my ice cream. Some wasps hung out with us while we ate our treats. None of us panicked, but neither did we share our ice cream with them.

Our next stop was the lakeshore filled with rocks waiting for my grandkids to toss them back into the water. Now that they are older, they try to skip the rocks across the water instead of just throwing them. I planned to let them stay ten minutes, maybe fifteen, but they were having so much fun with each other. I watched them toss rocks, look for agates and beach glass, and play with driftwood, and suddenly I could see my siblings and myself on the sandy shores of Bluegill Lake seining for minnows, building sand castles, and floating on inner tubes in the water. I marveled at how long ago that was and yet how quickly the years had passed — in the snap of a finger. We stayed for more than a half hour. This was the best part of my day. Because while my grandkids on the beach had no idea how quickly time would slip by, I did.

The Answer to August Tenth’s Question: It’s a Tussock Moth Caterpillar (And a Connection to a Kate Moore Book)

Posted on August 16, 2025 by youngv2015

On August 10, I posted a picture of a caterpillar that looked like it had been assembled by a young child with a vivid imagination.

One reader said that it looked like a wet Tussock Moth caterpillar. At first, I thought the word wet was part of the caterpillar’s name. Then I realized I’d been hosing dirt off the lower part of my house’s foundation. The caterpillar rested about five feet up, but the mist from the hose gave it a shower, making it look even more fanciful than when it’s dry. A few days later, another reader also identified the caterpillar as a Tussock Moth. (There are about thirty different varieties of Tussock Moths.)

To watch a video about White-Marked Tussock caterpillars and moths, click here. Note: In this video the Tussock caterpillar is crawling on a person’s finger and hand. Because the caterpillars release toxins to discourage being eaten by predators, humans handling the caterpillars could experience itching and burning after touching them. I’d say it’s best not to touch. To learn more about Tussock Moths and see a picture of an adult version, click here.

Tussock caterpillars eat the leaves of a wide variety of trees, bushes, and other plants. They have voracious appetites, sometimes leaving trees bare. Although I’m sure no one wants to see the leaves on their trees disappear, people need to keep in mind that because Tussock Moths are native to their North American habitats, they are part of a balanced ecosystem. So, Mother Nature has an answer for Tussock Moths when they become too numerous — a virus outbreak among the species causes their numbers to drop, and that gives trees a chance to recover. However, some trees will die or be weakened and become more susceptible to other diseases and pests. As part of their ecosystem, Tussock Moths also face predation from native species found in their habitat: some birds, insects, bats, and small animals will eat Tussock Moths in their various stages of development.

While some types of trees can better withstand hungry Tussock caterpillars, other trees, especially conifers, are more susceptible to destruction. If you notice the leaves disappearing off your deciduous or coniferous trees, it might be wise to seek advice from several reliable sources.

On a literary bent, and because I often make connections to things I’ve read . . .

While watching the video on White-Marked Tussock Moths, I learned female White-Marked moths are either wingless or nearly wingless, as are most Tussock Moth species. They will never take flight. The male will find them, mate with them, then fly away to mate with other females. The female will lay her eggs and die shortly after. That’s it. She will never experience flight. Now, I know Mother Nature has specific ways of providing for the continued survival of each species, and I know I’m anthropomorphizing the White-Marked Tussock Moth, but I felt for the female moth who would never fly.

As I watched this video, I immediately thought about Kate Moore’s nonfiction book The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Shocking Story of a Woman Who Dared to Fight Back. In her book, Moore tells the story of Elizabeth Packard who is married to Theophilus Packard, a minister, and the mother of five children. It’s 1860, and after twenty-one years of marriage and being told what to think and say, Elizabeth dares to spread her wings and fly. A deeply devout woman, she begins to question some of her husband’s church’s teachings. She writes essays about her doubts and concerns. Theophilus tells her to stop, but she won’t because she believes she is a separate person from her husband and entitled to her own thoughts and opinions.

Outraged, Theophilus has Elizabeth declared insane and committed to the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois. Shockingly, because Elizabeth is his wife, and because the state of Illinois allowed it, Theophilus is able to have her locked up simply on his say-so. After Elizabeth is placed in the state hospital, she discovers she isn’t the only married woman to have been declared insane by a husband who wanted his wife out of the way. Ironically, if Elizabeth and the other women had been single, it would have taken a jury of six people to agree they should be committed.

Through Elizabeth Packard’s powerful story set in the second half of the 1800s, Kate Moore explores the second-class status of women, the abysmal conditions in state hospitals, and the arrogant doctors and medical staff who professed to be experts in psychology, but who truly did great harm to the people they should have protected. Moore also talks about the people who, along with Elizabeth, worked tirelessly to change attitudes and laws to give women more rights and to reform state hospitals.

I’m just going to say it — Hey, Mother Nature, how about giving the female Tussock Moth wings?

Hanging with the Grandkids, Slurping Fizzy Sodas, and Saving a Balloon

Posted on June 29, 2025 by youngv2015

On the first day of my grandkids’ summer break, I took them to a local coffee shop. I ordered them fancy fizzy soda concoctions and let them each pick out a piece of bakery. I ordered myself a small latte and no bakery. The time with my grandkids — priceless. The cost of the trip to the coffeehouse — more than five happy meals at McDonald’s. I had sticker shock when the clerk gave me the total, but I acted like I spent that much in coffee shops all the time.

I handed the clerk my credit card and refused to think about the cost. Afterall, the soda concoctions were works of performance art served in 16-ounce glasses, mixed with fun flavors like watermelon, pineapple, cherry, coconut, and strawberry and topped with whipped foam. I almost wished I had ordered a fancy fizzy soda. As the clerk handed the first soda to one of my grandkids, she said, “Stir the soda very gently with the straw a few times. If you stir it too fast, it will overflow the glass. Then drink a little bit of the soda, and mix it some more.”

We were five minutes into sipping, noshing, and gabbing when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a slightly built, older man walk into the shop. Dressed from head to toe in dark colors, he carried a small black grip, which he placed on a chair. He picked up a large dinner-plate-sized planter filled with succulents and moved it to a table where a younger man sat eating a bowl of food. This didn’t bother the younger man, who wore headphones and watched his computer screen.

The older man removed his black jacket and slipped on a whitecoat, the type doctors wear. I stopped paying attention to him because the grandkids and I were tasting each other’s sodas. Thankfully, they didn’t ask to try my latte; although, I would have been a good sport about it.

A short while later, the man in the white coat appeared at our table. The name Dr. Twist was stitched above his left pocket. In his hand he held a purple dog made of balloons. He gave the balloon dog to my six-year-old grandson. He twisted up more balloons, making a green crown with an alien’s face, a yellow crown with a funny face, and a brown monkey, which he gave to my other three grandkids. He made a balloon flower for me, which I took home and put in a crystal vase. Besides being good with balloons, Dr. Twist had a great table-side manner, cracking deadpan jokes and making us laugh.

I don’t think Dr. Twist was a planned event at the coffee shop. I got the impression the balloon doctor was a free spirit, showing up on a whim, twisting up fun, then leaving smiles and laughter in his wake.

After we finished our treats, we bussed our table, and balloons in hand, we thanked Dr. Twist again.

It was a windy, blustery Winnie-the-Pooh day, so as we left the coffee shop, I warned the grandkids, “Hang on tight to your balloons or the wind will take them.” We’d made it to the van and were almost inside — when a sudden gust of wind snatched the yellow crown balloon with the funny face from my eight-year-old grandson’s hand.

As one, and without a spoken plan, we secured the rest of the balloons in the van and gave chase. The untethered balloon swirled up and down alongside the building in the wind. A couple of times we came close to catching it, but at the last second, the wind, in a game of keep away, would lift it high into the air. Finally, the wind carried it into the busy street.

Released from the updrafts surrounding the building, the balloon dropped to the pavement. We watched as a semi-truck approached, sure the balloon would burst beneath its large tires. Miraculously, the yellow crown with the funny face survived. The wind gently ushered it onto a quiet side street, where it came to rest against a curb.

When the balloon stopped moving, I ran across the busy street, hoping to grab it. Don’t worry, I exercised plenty of caution. I understood it would not be a good look to be hit by a vehicle while rescuing a balloon. I thought about the online news articles reporting on a dim-witted nana who was run over by a car while trying to catch her grandson’s balloon. I imagined being trolled by online commentators, who would all come to the same consensus: “Yeah, that lady was stupid” and “Darwin’s theory in action.”

So, I waited for traffic to clear, then I ran across the street. In that moment I suffered a pang of vanity, and I wondered just how strange I looked while dashing madly through the crosswalk. But I assured myself that anyone who may have taken notice of me had surely seen stranger things than someone’s nana chasing a balloon. Then, I wondered if anyone was taking a video of me to post on TikTok, perhaps titling it “How Not to Cross the Street.”

The balloon had waited for me on the side street, and as I reached for it, I hoped the wind wouldn’t snatch it away again. But the wind had finished messing with me. I grabbed the yellow crown, and when it was safe, I strode back across the street, all while singing in my head, My superpower is chasing balloons.

I handed the balloon back to my grandson. I thought he’d smile or tell me I was amazing. But he just looked at me — like he was trying to figure something out. I didn’t ask him what he was thinking. But I was thinking.

We all got back into the van.

“Hey,” I asked my grandkids, “Nana didn’t look funny running across the street after a balloon, did she?”

From the third-row seat came the voice of clarity. It was my oldest grandkid who reassured me, “Actually, Nana, you looked really funny.”

We all laughed.

I was glad I hadn’t let the cost of the sodas, and latte, and baked goods upset me. Because in the end, the amount of money I spent on the one-time visit to the coffeehouse wasn’t going to impact my financial security. There are plenty of disasters in life that could possibly do that, and I try not to dwell on those either.

Instead we have a happy memory, which will remain long after the air seeps out of the balloons.

Just for Something Different — Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Posted on April 29, 2025 by youngv2015

Yesterday I made cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies. The kind of cookies my grandma Olive would’ve made to serve at a ladies’ luncheon. (Although, her cookies would’ve have contained dates because dried cranberries weren’t available until the 1980s.) Her luncheon would’ve been written up on the society page of the local paper. The kind of write-up they don’t do anymore, unless it’s about someone famous. It would’ve sounded something like this:

On Wednesday, May 6, Mrs. George Youngquist entertained the Presbyterian Women at a luncheon in her home. [Back in the day, a married woman’s first name was rarely mentioned in an article.] She served a variety of finger sandwiches, potato salad, and coleslaw, along with fruit punch. For dessert she served a variety of cookies, including her well-loved date-pistachio shortbread cookies, accompanied by coffee. In attendance were the group’s president, Mrs. Frank Smith; the secretary, Mrs. Grover Bost; and the treasurer, Mrs. Elmer Connors, along with nine other members. No church business was conducted. Mrs. Youngquist said, “The gathering was held to celebrate spring and to give the ladies a chance to visit with one another.“

As a child and for most of my adult life, had I been at that luncheon, I would’ve passed on the date cookies, no matter how well loved they were. I would’ve looked for a chocolate chip, peanut butter, or sugar cookie. But I’m of a certain age now, and I like to try new things, occasionally. (But in a crazy paradox, I’m not big on change.) So, a couple of months ago when I saw this recipe, along with a picture of the cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies, I decided I needed to bake them. After all, I do like cranberries and pistachios and shortbread.

I bought the dried cranberries and the shelled pistachios shortly after I came across the recipe, which was a couple of months ago. Yesterday I decided I needed to stop procrastinating and bake the cookies. It was a perfect day for baking. I spent most of the day writing, so baking cookies would get me off my backside. And it rained and stormed most of the day, ideal baking weather.

Why did it take me a couple of months to try the recipe? Fear of messing it up — because I’d never made this kind of cookie before. But once I started mixing, chilling, then later baking, I discovered this simple recipe produces scrumptious cookies that look sophisticated, like the kind served at a luncheon or with high tea.

The two sticks of butter used in the recipe make the cookies melt in my mouth, releasing bursts of cranberry and orange, making my mouth tingle. They pair well with coffee. However, I will have to find someone to share them with because my husband doesn’t like cranberries. He did try one, but he didn’t like it. I just couldn’t possibly eat all these cookies by myself.

What did I like about this recipe? It was easy! The cookies turned out so well that I fancied myself as a TV chef. The dough is rolled into a log before chilling, which makes it easy to slice the cookies for baking. Other recipes, like this one, call for the dough to be chilled in a ball then rolled out on a flat surface before using a round cookie cutter. But the log method is easier and less messy. Also, the log method keeps the baker from overhandling the dough. Best of all, I felt like I was in the kitchen baking with my grandma Olive.

What would I change? I’d use chopped walnuts or pecans instead of pistachios, which are harder than pecans and walnuts. Because when I had to slice the cookie dough, the chopped pistachios were difficult to cut through. I could use dried cherries because my husband likes those, but he doesn’t like walnuts or pecans. I could eliminate the nuts, but they add a savory taste.

My one goof? I only had a small orange. Having never zested an orange before, I had no idea how many it would take to make a tablespoon of zest. I ended up with 1/2 tablespoon, and while I can still taste the orange, I can’t help but wonder what the cookies would taste like if I’d used a whole tablespoon.

Here’s the recipe I used. Happy baking!

An Afternoon at the Opera with Puccini’s La Bohème

Posted on March 30, 2025 by youngv2015

I went to see a live opera because it was on my list of things to do. (In case you’re wondering, I signed up for Medicare a few months before going to my first opera.) I had such a good time that I want to share some thoughts about my experience, but first I should point out my shortcomings as an opera critic.

I have no training in opera.

I don’t understand opera’s conventions. (Other than there is a lot of singing, which crescendos into an epic climax of either joyful or tragic proportions at the end of the opera.)

The Jenny Lind biography I read as a fourth or fifth grader.

My exposure to opera as a child consisted of two events. One, in fourth grade I read a biography about Jenny Lind, an opera singer known as the Swedish Nightingale. This didn’t encourage me to learn more about opera. Instead, I just fancied myself to be the next Jenny Lind. I would sit by my second-story bedroom window and sing out into the neighborhood (with what I considered to be a lovely operatic voice) because that is what Lind did as a child. People passing by Lind’s window listened to her beautiful singing, and one passerby discovered her talent and helped her down the path to stardom. Only Mr. Geise’s cows across the road heard me sing, and none of them mooed about my talent.

Two, when I was about twelve, I saw Beverly Sills, a talented soprano, perform on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. I loved her voice and her flowing red hair. When Carson interviewed her, I fell for her wit and laughter. Over a handful of years, I saw Sills make appearances on various talk shows during the 1970s, but I never saw her in an opera. She was a gifted and well-respected opera singer, but it was the talk-show circuit that made her a household name and gave her celebrity status. Even people who knew nothing about opera, like me, usually knew who Sills was.

So, anything I say about my La Bohème experience isn’t intended to resemble a critique or a review. Also, I truly loved my debut at the opera, so my comments come from a place of affection, even if they sound cheeky.

I chose La Bohème to be my first opera because that’s what the Lyric Opera of the North performed this year. It’s a famous opera, so I’d heard of it. It’s the opera that Ronnie Cammareri (Nicholas Cage) takes Loretta Castorini (Cher) to see in Moonstruck. Ronnie knew what he was doing — Loretta loved the opera. And, this is where Loretta falls in love with Ronnie.

Because La Bohème is written in Italian, I read a synopsis of the libretto before attending the opera. While reading about La Bohème, I came across some unflattering critiques of Puccini’s opera — calling his musical composition simplistic, lacking in complexity, yada, yada, yada. For a moment, I wondered if I should wait to see a different opera. Then I remembered all the beautiful singing and music in Moonstruck’s La Bohème scene. I also learned that La Bohème has been performed over 1,000 times at the Met. So, not the first time critics have panned something that people love anyway. Besides, what would I know about the musical composition of an opera.

So, here’s what I loved about my first opera:

I loved that the set design evoked a shabby-chic slice of Paris with a romanticized version of poverty, you know, without the half-starved rats, the rubbish in the streets, and the ever-present layer of grime. The rich jewel-toned costumes complimented the pastel-colored sets, like a well-chosen pair of earrings and necklace elevates an evening gown. After all, gritty reality is overrated. When we know that in the end a lovely young woman will die a tragic death while in the arms of her lover, we want some beauty along the way.
I loved that on a long, narrow screen above the stage, an English translation of the Italian libretto scrolled by as the singers trilled, vibratoed, bel cantoed, and otherwise sang their way through scenes of comedy, anger, and tragedy. The subtitles provided a line-by-line translation. Without it, I would’ve missed out on so much of the story. I thought this was unique to the venue I attended, but a friend of mine said when she saw an opera in Michigan there were subtitles.
I loved that the melodramatic, over-the-top, corny libretto sounded brilliant when sung in Italian. More than once, as I read the English translation, I thought, “As a writer, I could never get away with such sappy, syrupy, trite dialogue.” (Perhaps my characters should speak Italian.)
I loved that although the pageantry on the stage was gorgeous, it was upstaged by operatic voices so strong, crisp, and clear, producing sounds so bewitching that I couldn’t believe they flowed from human voice boxes.
I loved the magnificent, glorious, wrenching tragedy of it all. How can anyone hear Mimi ask, “Will my hands never be warm again?” and not shed a tear? (Charles Dickens would’ve loved to have written that line.)
I loved that at the end of the opera, as Mimi reclines upon her couch in her freezing apartment, dying of tuberculosis, she sings her heart out with Rodolfo, the love of her life, reminiscing about their time together. Having read a book about dreaded plagues, which included a chapter about tuberculosis, the incongruity of performing an operatic finale when one would be coughing up blood and gasping for air, stuck me as darkly humorous. But I kicked the cold, hard reality from my mind, and I let Mimi and Rodolfo’s final moment together carry me away.

After the performers took their final bows, I left the theater knowing I would definitely see another opera. A few months later, I went to see La Serva Padrona, a light-hearted intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, which was translated into a modern English version by Steve Solkela. I loved everything about it.

In the movie Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) takes Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) to see her first opera, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. Before the performance begins, it’s apparent that Edward hopes Vivian will love opera as much as he does. As the final song ends and Violetta dies in the arms of her lover (of course), Edward looks at Vivian and sees her eyes have pooled with tears and her face is filled with rapture. At this moment, Edward realizes Vivan has a depth beyond his stereotype of hookers. He has fallen in love with Vivan, he just doesn’t know it yet.

When another woman asks Vivan if she enjoyed the opera, Vivian answers, “Oh, it was so good I almost peed my pants.” Vivan, like me, doesn’t know how to talk about the conventions of opera, but she knows what she likes.

My Replacement Mittens Arrived!

Posted on March 14, 2025 by youngv2015

(Some of you may have read my blog about my lost mitten. About my buying another pair online. And about one of the new mittens arriving with a twisted lining. If not, you can click on A Lost Mitten to read that blog if you wish.)

My replacement mittens: I now have two left mittens and one right mitten. My mother also gave me the hat for Christmas.

On Monday, March 3, my new mittens arrived. I pulled the bag from the mailbox, and crossed my fingers as I hoped they would fit and be without defect. After I went inside, I opened the bag and tried on the mittens. They fit fine. They were a perfect match. And they looked well-made.

The journey of my mittens was well documented. After the company received the pair with the defective mitten, they sent me an email telling me that my replacement mittens were on their way. They provided me with a tracking number, so I could follow their journey as they made their way from the East Coast to my Midwest mailbox. They sent me another email after my mittens were delivered.

Remember the old days when we ordered something from a catalog, then waited? There were no emails or text alerts to tell us something was on the way. We couldn’t track it as it left a warehouse, arrived at a shipping center, then showed up at our local delivery facility where it would be loaded onto a small truck headed to its final destination. We didn’t get an email announcing our package’s arrival with a photo of it resting against our front door.

But receiving those emails from the company was reassuring. After all, the original pair of mittens had been a Christmas gift from my mother.

All that communication about my defective mitten and the replacement mittens made me think about a two-week summer romance I had with a boy when I was fifteen. We parted with promises to write to each other. I wrote to him and received a letter from him in return. So I wrote again.

Every day I ran to the mailbox, flung open the flap, and grabbed the mail. I shuffled through bills and advertisements, but he never wrote back. Perhaps waiting for my new mittens reminded me of the boy because I waited for a second letter from him with the same hope I had while waiting for my replacement mittens. I wanted both his letter and my mittens to be perfect.

I pined for that boy, every day.

After each day’s disappointing trip to the mailbox, I’d sit on my bed and hold his one-and-only letter and sing the words to “Daisy a Day.” Tears would gather in my eyes. I’d blink them back, but occasionally one would break loose and roll down my cheek. (My unrequited love for that boy hurt almost as much as when I had a supersized crush on Donny Osmond, who never answered even one of my love letters. To think of all the money I wasted on Tiger Beat Magazine.)

Next, I’d play a John Denver album and sing along with his rendition of the heart-wrenching ballad “Today,” which was about a love that wasn’t meant to last. This sent the rest of the tears that had pooled in my eyes strolling down my face.

Finally, I’d play a Beatles album and listen to “Please, Mr. Postman” over and over. I’d sing along with every pleading lyric, as the singer begged the postman to check his bag one more time. The song had a melancholy air, but at the same time, the rhythm of the music inspired me to get off my bed and dance. Even though the singer, like me, was disappointed by love, the dancing lifted my spirits and soon I’d be off to enjoy the rest of the day.

For about a month that was my routine — dash to the mailbox, suffer bitter disappointment, croon to love songs, then dance myself out of a funk.

After school started in the fall, I kicked that summer-romance boy out of my head. I was on to other crushes on other boys in my high school — just like when I outgrew Donny Osmond and went on to have a crush on David Cassidy.

Eventually, I outgrew it all — the crushes, the summer romance, and the teen idols.

But I won’t outgrow my replacement mittens. They are safely tucked in my mitten box on a shelf in my front closet. It’s still cold enough to wear them, but spring is coming. I’m saving them for next year. By then I’ll be brave enough to wear them again. I’m going to watch over them as carefully as I watched over the mailbox when I was fifteen.

The mittens, a Christmas gift from my mother, warm my soul.

Writing Near the Lake

Category Archives: Essays and Creative Nonfiction