THE SONGS OF A NIGHTINGAIL

  Most of the places I’ve lived in over the years have had welcoming front porches. This is the brick porch of the house I grew up in, in El Cerrito, CA in 1941. And in 1957. This was the first house I lived in after my husband and I were married.  It was a lovely 3 bdrm house on the Forest Service station in Requa, CA just north of the Klamath River.  It had stairs leading to a sort of duck & cover front porch.  Not really much of a porch and we never used it to enter the house.  We came in the kitchen door as that’s where we parked our car. The front porch of a rented log cabin in Gasquet, CA in December, 1968.  After our first child was born, my husband, with the permission of the owners, constructed a safe railing around it. Four years later we were living in a different cabin – still in Gasquet - with a large covered front deck. From that cabin we moved into an old 2-room school house that had been renovated into a 5 bdrm/2 bath home with a generou...

It took a bit of sleuthing through photo albums and high school year books, but I managed to find a few photos of men lined up for different events. A few well-dressed gentlemen line up in Yosemite Valley for a photograph with Yosemite’s namesake waterfall behind them in the late 1800s.  My great grandfather, J.K. Smedley, who made the trip to the Valley in 1874 is not among these fellows, but he and his touring compadres did line up for a formal photograph and I imagine it looked something like this one. One of these fellows is my husband’s grandfather, Harry Brasier.  He might be on the far right but I'm not sure.  These were the six who canoed their way through five lakes in Canada in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Harry’s hockey team with Harry sitting 3 rd in from the left. Harry with a group of hockey players - Harry in the second row on the right in the sleeveless black shirt. 1957 - El Cerrito High’s varsity football team.  Back row, far left, is a former bo...

  These female workers are making their way through rows of bombs during WWI.  I can think of more pleasant rows of things for them to make their way through. Like rows of colorful daisies Or a row of hydrangeas in Scotland’s Inverewe Gardens.  I love blue hydrangeas in particular. To make sure hydrangeas produce blue blooms, add coffee grounds to the soil. I don't know where this long row of hydrangeas is, but they're beautiful and so is the surrounding countryside.  A walk along this row would be delightful. They could stroll through rows of shading trees with soft grass underfoot. Or walk along a row of benches in a beautiful park. When ScotSue and I wandered through Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh in early September of 2015 there wasn’t a seat to be had on the benches lining the walkway in this picture. They could make their way through decorated chairs set up for a wedding to find the perfect seat from which to view the proceedings. Or slip between rows of c...