Letters to Lillianne

  An old plate with a painting of a cob of corn, husks partially peeled open, hangs above my kitchen sink. This plate was purchased by my favorite grandmother in her antique-seeking days. It hung in her kitchen, now it hangs in mine. In the early 1970s when television stations and programs were multiplying, mothers were working, and Bill Gates hadn’t yet made his way into the halls of Lakeside School to catch his computer vision; my grandmother would wait every summer for the Greyhound Bus to arrive so we could begin our week together. My favorite summer memories were camp, the beach, and visiting grandma. It was just the two of us. Oh, my grandfather was around, but he made himself busy when I was in town so the two of us could have “girl time.” Grandma taught me to cook, sew, ride horses and tend to their farm in Beaverton, Oregon. Television was limited to thirty minutes a day. She still had the Depression pulsing through her blood...

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