Category Archives: Memories

June 16, 2025 · 5:06 pm

Part II, Flag Day Reflections: My Dad’s Service

Disney’s Donald Duck, WWII. I can see why Dad chose to imitate this particular character. He was very proud of his Scottish roots!

Some time ago I responded to a fellow blogger, GP, Pacific Paratrooper, a WordPress.com site of Pacific War era information (https://wordpress.com/reader/feeds/4440944/posts/5114548606) about his article, “Disney and WWII,” posted Feb. 12, 2024. The post both tickled my fancy and triggered positive childhood memories, but also, delivered a good dose of regret. I knew so little about my dad’s service, and there was no one living I could ask.  

Here is a record of our brief exchange:

Me:  My dad was a WWII Marine. I didn’t think it was odd that he could speak to my brother and me in full Donald Duck voice because he just did. He never spoke about why. He did drive us from Wisconsin to California to visit Disneyland when it opened. So much I wish I could ask him now.

GP:  May I ask what unit he was in? There might just be a good reason. Disney made training videos, etc. too.

Me:  I am ashamed to say that I don’t know his unit.

GP:  So many of us have questions we wished we had asked.

As the days passed, I kept going back to GP’s article. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I had practically no knowledge whatsoever of my father’s service in World War II with who I believed I was: a loving daughter, a lover of history, a teacher of literature, writing, and the Holocaust, a writer of historical fiction, a devoted library worker . . . how was it that I knew so little about my own father’s relationship to such tremendously important world events?

Dad, Lori and Billy. About 1959. We lived next door to a bowling alley, but Lake Michigan was in our backyard!

An online search informed me that I could request my father’s United States Marine Corps Separation Documents and Personnel Records from the National Personnel Records Center at the National Archives, www.archives.gov. I did so, and some months later I received a short stack of copied documents dating back to my father’s voluntary enlistment the day after the Pearl Harbor attack.

I did remember that. It was one of the few stories Dad repeatedly told my brother and me, that he had waited in a line two blocks long in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois to join the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor. It painted a picture of patriotism that stayed with me. I have heard myself repeat it many times throughout my life. My dad, the story revealed, was one of the true heroes of The Greatest Generation.

Here is the rest of the story, as much as I was able to glean from the archives:

Pearl Harbor Attack. World War II Facts.org

When Pearl Harbor was attacked (December 7, 1941), William Harold Johnstone was 21 ½ years old. He had turned 21 on his Flag Day birthday, June 14, 1941. He began active duty on January 5, 1942. He was a high school graduate, and he had completed one year of college. His stated major was Pre Med. Qualified sports listed were track, football, basketball, and swimming. It was also noted that he sang in the church choir. He worked at Montgomery and Ward Co. as a silk screen printer.

I do remember my mom telling me Dad had wanted to be a doctor but that after his war injuries he had never gone back to college. I know he was always interested in medicine. Also, I remember a story about how he swam out and back to a pier or perhaps a buoy some distance off the shore of Lake Michigan and back as a teen, which I gather was somewhat of a feat / badge of honor. Also, he mentioned that at one time he had the nickname “Johnny Rock” — perhaps an homage to both his last name (Johnstone) and his physical fitness. His record shows he was 5 foot, 8 inches tall and he weighed 136 pounds. Not a big man, but strong.

Dad’s father, an immigrant from Scotland, had died when Dad was only four-years-old, so he was raised by his mother, Lorene, and her sister, Mary, along with his older brother, Donald. Tragically, Donald died at age twelve. It was then, my dad told me that he knew he had to give up childish games and work to help his mother and his aunt.

This then, is a portrait of the twenty-one-year-old man who entered the military.

My Handsome Dad

Dad’s original principle military duty early on was Surveyor 227 Rank Private First Class. USMC, 19th Marines Engineer, 3rd Marine Division Fleet Marine Force, Camp Elliott, San Diego, CA.

Later I see him listed as Private 1st Class, 339815, “I” Company, Third Battalion, 22nd Marines, Sixth Marine Division.

After his initial training, it seems Dad shipped out. The reports are difficult to decipher, but they contain notes of his being in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Auckland, New Zealand; Guam, Marianas Islands; Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Group; and Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The only detailed reports refer to Guam and Okinawa.

Guam in World War II, National Park Service

Here is Guam:

From James Forrestal, The Secretary of the Navy, Washington

The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in commending the First Provisional Marine Brigade for service as follows:

“For outstanding heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces, during the invasion of Guam, Marianas Islands, from July 21 to August 10, 1944. Functioning as a combat unit for the first time, the First Provisional Marine Brigade forced a landing against strong hostile defenses and well camouflaged positions, steadily advancing inland under the relentless fury of the enemy’s heavy artillery, mortar and small arms fire to secure a firm beachhead by nightfall.

Executing a difficult turning movement to the north, this daring and courageous unit fought its way ahead yard by yard through mangrove swamps, dense jungles and over cliffs and, although terrifically reduced in strength under the enemy’s fanatical counterattacks, hunted the Japanese in caves, pillboxes and foxholes and exterminated them.

By their individual acts of gallantry and their indomitable fighting teamwork throughout this bitter and costly struggle, the men of the First provisional Marine Brigade aided immeasurably in the restoration of Guam to our sovereignty.”

All personnel serving the First Provisional Marine Brigade, comprised of: Headquarters Company; Brigade Signal Company; Brigade military Police Company; 4th Marines, Reinforced; 22nd Marines, Reinforced; Naval Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 515, and 4th Platoon, 2nd Marine Ammunition Company, during the above mentioned period are hereby authorized to wear the NAVY UNIT COMMENDATION Ribbon.

My dad never described any of these experiences to me, and I don’t remember ever seeing that Commendation Ribbon. I hope he was able to talk about it with someone, but I do not know if that was the case. It grieves me.

On Okinawa:

The next specific report in the records begins with a Report of Combat Casualties, which states that William H. Johnstone of the Twenty Second Marines, Sixth Marine Division was Wounded in Action on May 12, 1945 on the island of Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands. Recorded on 13 May 1945. Diagnosis: Wound Fragment Face. Prognosis: Serious.

On 18 May 1945, U.S. Fleet Hospital No. 111 reports William H. Johnstone, Wounds, Multiple. Wounded in action against an organized enemy. Shell struck near patient causing injury.

A U.S. Fleet Hospital letter to my grandmother, written July 1, 1945 reports Dad’s condition as good, and states that he will be returned to active duty in the near future, so it looks like he was hospitalized for approximately a month and a half.

The record states:

In the name of the President of the United States, and by direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Purple Heart is awarded by the Medical Officer in Command, U.S. Fleet Hospital Number One Hundred and Eleven to: William H. Johnstone, Private 1st Class, USMC for wounds received in action against an enemy of the United States on 14 May 1945.

The battle of Okinawa “was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific War, claiming the lives of more than 12,000 Americans and 100,000 Japanese, including the commanding generals on both sides. In addition, at least 100,000 civilians were either killed in combat or were ordered to commit suicide by the Japanese military (Battle of Okinawa | Map, Combatants, Facts, Casualties, & Outcome | Britannica).

Battle of Okinawa, Brittanica

I do remember seeing the Purple Heart. My father gave it to my brother. Unfortunately, it was lost during my brother’s divorce, and it was never returned to the family.

I would like to thank GP and his Pacific Paratrooper WordPress blog for getting me started on this mission of discovery. Without his article on Disney in the Military and my memories of a loving father amusing my brother and me with an array of his silly Donald Duck performances, I doubt that I would have been able to share this information with my children and grandchildren. So, thank you, GP!

And thanks to all my readers.

I love you, Dad.

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Filed under Family, Memories, Research, The Greatest Generation, Uncategorized, World War II

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June 13, 2025 · 4:05 pm

Flag Day Reflections, Part I

About sixty years ago on Flag Day, two little girls got up early in the morning and went to work in the kitchen, making cupcakes. These little girls had met when their moms rented apartments next door to one another after their marriages ended, and the girls had become fast and, it has turned out, life-long friends.

Cheryl was the host. I was staying at her house for an extended visit, as I did most holidays and summer breaks from school.

My mom had moved away from Cheryl’s town and taken my brother and I with her, but my dad remained. He lived in a men’s only residence in downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin, about 19 blocks away from Cheryl’s house, so I could never stay with him, but I was lucky to have Cheryl and her dear mom, Marion, welcome me in whenever I could come. Marion was an X-ray technician at St. Catherine’s Hospital and left the house before dawn most mornings to work, so Cheryl and I were on our own.

My hosts, a few years later

The cupcakes turned out well, and we set out. It was my dad’s birthday, and we were going to surprise him with the cupcakes. As often happens in life, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. As we walked, we were tempted to eat first one, then two, and then ultimately all three of the cupcakes we planned to share with Dad.

Oops!

We mustered on, and eventually arrived at the imposing building where Dad resided, standing at the front desk of the huge lobby, two little chocolate-smudged waifs, empty handed, tired and thirsty. The attendant rang Dad’s room and he came down.

The former Kenosha Youth Foundation building (now Residences at Library Park) where my rented a room for many years. I believe it was in the front, left, on the upper floor.

We got the surprise part of our visit right. Dad had certainly not expected us to walk so far at our young age, unattended. I honestly don’t remember exactly how old Cheryl and I were that summer, but I remember being small in the distant way adults remember such things.

“Happy Birthday, Dad! We made you cupcakes, Dad, but we got hungry.”

It’s a story my dad always told with affectionate tenderness.

All these years later, that Flag Day is on my mind, along with so many other thoughts and feelings that I believe must be expressed. These are complicated times. . .

My father was a World War II United States Marine Corps veteran, something my brother and I were always aware of. We knew the Marine’s Hymn, and we knew he had learned to talk like Donald Duck while he was in the service, but he was a quiet man who never spoke to us of his battle experiences. Other than his Purple Heart, we never saw a uniform, a gun, or any military artifacts in our home while he lived with us, nor did I find any among his possessions after he died.

Dad was playful and sentimental with us, teaching us about nature and camping and the stars. On his Flag Day birthdays, he enjoyed the simple things—cake and ice cream, tea or coffee, a home-made dinner. He did not use profanity, never used derogatory terms when referring to other people, and abstained from smoking and alcohol, all of which were somewhat unusual among his peers. He believed in staying fit, mind and body.

Dad and Cheryl on one of our many blue tent camping trips.

For many years, while living at the Kenosha Youth Foundation, he walked across the lawn, past its statue of Abraham Lincoln, into the beautiful old library where he read several daily newspapers, and enjoyed reading non-fiction books, mostly medical titles, as I recall. He continued a daily walking regimen all his life.

My Dad

This gentle man died long before the current resident of our White house launched his political campaign, so I cannot say for certain how he would feel about sharing his birthday with him, or whether he would support his policies. Dad was a Republican so I imagine this last decade would have been a challenge for him, certainly in different ways, but perhaps just as powerfully as it has been for me. Dad’s nature was the very opposite of this president. I like to think he would not have voted for him or supported him.

These are the musings of a daughter, his only living child, as the president of United States of America is set to preside over a huge military parade in Washington D.C. for the Army’s 250th birthday. And as National Guard troops and U.S. marines are staked out in the city of Los Angeles against the wishes of the governor and mayor. As ICE agents conduct raids, sweeping up suspected undocumented immigrants. As many of our government agencies are gutted, our history is being rewritten, and kindness and love and We the People seem forgotten.

But also, as over 2000 gatherings of everyday citizens in America and around the world will be protesting.

I will be among them.

I hope he would be proud, but I do not know.

What I do know is that even if he wasn’t proud of my participation, or he didn’t want me to attend because he feared for my safety, he would not try to stop me. He believed in all of the freedoms he fought so hard for in World War II. And I know that no matter what, he would hug me and tell me he loved me as he always did, throughout the many mistakes, successes, and milestones, large and small, of my life.

And if we could spend his birthday together this Flag Day, I know he would smile and tell the story of the little cupcake girls who visited him on his birthday.

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May 18, 2025 · 5:24 pm

I Am a Writer

Something I don’t write about much is my writing background. And of course there’s a reason for that. I have spent a significant amount of time, effort, and money over a period of many years on writing, and though I don’t consider any of that effort to be wasted, I do think sometimes, sometimes when the shadows fall a little too dark, a little too thick, that I should have done more with it, this writing thing, by now. That it should have gone somewhere. Perhaps I’m even a bit embarrassed to admit that with a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing, and years of study and teaching under my belt, I still haven’t published a novel.

Have I written a novel? Oh, yes. I wrote my first novel three decades ago. I was teaching English and became active in the National Writing Project, a fantastic program for teachers that encourages us to become writers, ourselves. I wrote a contemporary novel during that time but never attempted to have it published. It was my learning novel, the one that I would never throw away, but also, the one that wouldn’t be good enough to publish. Don’t ask me exactly how I came to this conclusion. I think I read an awful lot of books and articles about writing, and this was my take on first novels. They were like the first pancake, or the first kiss. You just had to do it and get it out of the way. The payoff would be better pancakes and better kisses later. Fluffier, more evenly browned, delicious. Or maybe my own writing just embarrassed me so much that I couldn’t even think of approaching anyone with it. So, I printed it out and boxed it away.

The itch to learn more and to focus more on writing took me to Goddard College next. I continued teaching and worked on my master’s from 2007-2009. During this exciting period, I wrote constantly, including many formal papers for my instructors and my thesis, which was a young adult historical fiction novel about a Catholic Polish teen and his Jewish neighbors during World War II. This one, I thought, I would try to get published. I just didn’t hurry it.

I attended Goddard West in Port Townsend, WA. I have never been to the original campus in Vermont, which has sadly, closed, but I still hope to visit there someday.

After the MFA, I focused on researching agents and publishers and writing queries. Admittedly, I didn’t try very hard. It was excruciating for me to put myself out there—my writing out there—which to me, amounted to putting my inexperience and inadequacy on full display, a neon sign of not-good-enough, flashy and annoying, just begging someone far more hard-working and talented than myself to squash it.

Time went by and I wrote with friends for fun, and to learn more. Shout out to you, Alicia, Lynn, Mike, Maria Elena, and of course all of my amazing students! I thought maybe I needed to put more time between me and my second novel. I started blogging. I was still teaching.

But then I found myself seriously ill with a rare form of cancer, and the world stopped spinning. I lost track of days, weeks. My brother was also ill and had come to live with us. My surgeries were successful. But I felt unwell. Months of chemo took a toll. And my brother. My beautiful brother, my only sibling, died.

I read that the average life span for appendiceal cancer was seven years, and yes, I also read that was not to be taken to mean that I would die in seven years—there were so many factors involved, and it was just an average. Many people died sooner. Others lived for twenty years or more. Blah, blah, blah, I thought. I have seven years.

With my husband’s blessing, I cashed in a small savings account and took a short trip to London and Paris (my one and only trip outside the U.S.), and it was wonderful, and I knew I wanted to write. My writing vision could not have been more clear. I came home and worked on a new novel.

East Finchley, Outside London.

A Beautiful Place to Write.

I taught for a couple more years. Other than my family, my teaching career was what I was most proud of and committed to. Still, I felt my energy shifting. I expected an early death. I imagined myself too weak to be the kind of teacher I had always aspired to be, which was the Robin Williams as John Keating kind of teacher from Dead Poet’s Society. That was who I should be, but instead, I felt—I believed, I was tired, in failing health, more Virginia Poe dying slowly of tuberculous while Edgar became ever more prolific than John Keating taking on the entire world of poetry and elevating young minds and spirits. I saw myself settling into an early writing retirement where my husband would continue to work, but I would just be . . . . the quiet writer in residence.

Robin William as the victorious Mr. Keating

The sadly beautiful Mrs. E. A. Poe

And so, I finished my third book. It is not published.

I found I missed gainful employment and have steadily worked part-time since my early retirement, teaching and library work mostly.  I am fighting my hermit-like tendencies, and I’m enjoying getting more involved in actively reading and responding to my fellow writers online, as well as the few writers I know personally. This is a joy and a responsibility. I believe we must support each other, and I am so in awe of all of you! I just finished reading a fellow Goddard graduate’s Sci-Fi thriller, The Regolith Temple, yesterday, and was blown away! Roxana Arama, I will be writing a review for your excellent book very soon!

I am still waiting to hear back from an agent who requested my full manuscript many months ago. I’m considering next steps.

I’m not dead. I stopped going in for cancer scans several years ago. I can’t afford them, and anyway, I’m quite spectacularly healthy. Weirdly! So maybe the seven years thing was really just about itches and actually had nothing to do with my diagnosis. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful, and I’m still in love with this beautiful planet. And pancakes and kisses.

I’m walking every day and working on another novel.

Trying to say it a little more often.

The simple sentence I’ve never felt worthy of.

I am a writer.

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Filed under Cancer, Cancer Journey, HIstorical Fiction, Identity, Literary Agents, London, Memories, Personal History, poetry, Relationship, Research, Teacher, Uncategorized, Voice, Writing, Writing Advice

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January 25, 2025 · 4:25 pm

And Then Came 2025

At “The North Pole”

Sky Park at Santa’s Village

Skyforest, CA

I headed home from my holiday travels at the end of December, heart-filled with the love of family. I was tired, but happy in the distinct way grandmothers know well. I had just been given a multitude of irreplaceable moments with my best beloveds . . . Tiny hands holding mine, some still so small, and some growing too fast. Also bigger hands and hearty hugs. Teens and twenty-somethings updating me on their lives. Strong, beautiful, and grown. Smiles. Laughter. Storybooks shared. Snowman crafts. Game playing. Sleepy cuddles. All of it so cherished.

After tearful goodbyes, I checked in for my flight and went in search of a new journal at the airport gift shop, thinking I could begin it on January 1st. Last year, returning from my Christmas trip, I had purchased one there, and it had been a terrific addition to my writing life. Alas, this time nothing spoke to me, probably because I already had it in mind that I wanted a guided journal like the one I used in 2024 (The Breathe Journal 52 Week Guided Planner) and they didn’t have anything similar.

Once home, my usual routines resumed, but with more than the usual spark of wonder and worry that a new year brings. This was not going to be just any new year. Apprehensive, sad, and often angry, too, I knew that I was going to have to work hard to maintain my usual optimism and good will. Honestly, my optimism was at one of the lowest levels I have ever known. Somehow, I was still hanging on to my feeling of good will in all my daily encounters. My genuine love of the people I see during the course of a regular week’s activities lifts me up. But when I was at home reading the news, I was feeling helpless and exceptionally low.

Mr. P and I stuck to our walking schedule, which we know is a nonnegotiable necessity, and I was happy to return to my library job and to church on Sundays. These things always help. Still, I knew I needed to get more writing in, and was stuck—am stuck—as far as my historical fiction manuscript goes, so I searched online for a new journal. I found and ordered Journal Like a Stoic: A 90-Day Stoicism Program to Live with Greater Acceptance, Less Judgment, and Deeper Intentionality by Brittany Polat, PhD.

By the time the journal arrived, we were more than halfway through January, and I was physically unwell. I am only into my third day of using it, but I would say it is helping me in the way that almost any honest attempt at writing truthfully from my heart and mind can do. It focuses my mind with reading, questions me with depth, and sets a task before me. I like it.

From the book: “Stoicism is a philosophy of life in the fullest sense. As a framework for daily living, it can guide us in every decision we make, from our career choices to what’s for dinner tonight. What’s more, it helps ground us when we’re living through what feels like unprecedented times.”

The kitty is also interested in stoicism.

The three disciplines of stoicism are logic, ethics, and physics. The four virtues of stoicism are wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. All these things I can get behind, believe that I mostly already embrace them. I say mostly, because I am ignorant when it comes to physics, and historically slack when it comes to temperance. Still! I am in. I will faithfully read and respond to the prompts in the book. I will write honestly.

I plan to continue with the other things in my life that sustain me: my love of friends, family, community, church, library, nature, reading, art, music, cooking, and pets (to name a few). And I will write the occasional blog post! I love connecting with all of you!

Cheers

To us! To a year of introspection and growth, and to a lifetime of love-motivated action and purpose. God Speed.

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Filed under Holidays, Identity, Memories, Nature, Reading, Uncategorized, Work, Writing

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January 1, 2023 · 5:39 pm

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells] by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Poems | poets.org

american – The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and…
— Read on poets.org/poem/memoriam-ring-out-wild-bells

This poem popped into my head as I was ringing the bell at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Nevada this morning. It’s a gothic revival style historic church and we ring the bell by pulling a thick, knotted rope. It takes a surprising amount of effort to get it started, but there’s something very satisfying about it. Some of my students from the class of 1999-2000 may remember a poetry project we did that December–Ring Out Wild Bells for a new millennium. Lovely memories.

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December 10, 2016 · 1:43 am

A Christmas Card Kind of View

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I owe it all to Rachel. I’ve written about this before, the way she made her kids believe in magic—the way that, for a time when we were very young, she glowed with humor and energy and wonder and beauty in everything she did, and the way that all came together at Christmas time. As I sit writing this, a few days before Christmas 2016, my 60th Christmas, it’s natural to look back upon other Christmases: childhood Christmases, falling-in-love Christmases, new-parent Christmases, teenage Christmases, grandparent Christmases, lonely Christmases…Christmases filled with family and friends—all of them precious in some way.

This year Mike and I will be in California and then Arizona visiting our kids and grandkids. We are so excited to be going together this Christmas, though our visits will be shorter than we’d like! (I have plans in the works for springtime…)

Every Christmas, since my first in 1956, when I was a six-month-old infant with a beautiful and entrancing mother—yes, Rachel, not to mention a kind and loving father, and a brother who loved me so much he called me “his present”—every December since, whether happy and relatively carefree, or saddened as I was while enduring hard times and loss, has left a lasting impact on my view of life. A Christmas card kind of view, Rachel Style.

The card is part Norman Rockwell, all homey and twinkly and smelling like home-baked Swedish spritz and candied oranges, but there’s a liberal dose of boozy smoke haze wafting over the rooftops and a neon tavern light or two blinking on and off in the distance just like Rudolf’s shiny nose.    christmas-decor-2013-017

The house on Sheridan Road had a fireplace the length of the entire living room. One memorable Christmas Eve, Billy and I were sitting on the rug in front of the fire, drinking cocoa and talking excitedly about Santa already being on his way to Wisconsin from the North Pole.

“That sucker is going get a big surprise when he drops down the chimney into that fire,” Mom said, taking a long sip of egg nog.

“Don’t scare the kids, Rachel.” Dad’s voice was always mild, and he assured us that the fire, which was blazing in a newly menacing way, would be out long before Santa and the reindeer arrived. Dad was an excellent camper and he knew how to put a fire out.img_1149

We knew Mom was just making “a funny” about Santa. Mom loved Santa. We knew that. After all, she’d taken us to Dickleman’s Toy Store to meet him, spent hours helping us prepare his favorite cookies, and, other than this one slip, she spoke of him in glowing terms, as if he were probably almost as magic as she was.

“He knows everything, and he loves you both more than anything in the world,” Mom had said, which pretty much made Santa her chubby, white-bearded twin or something, because that description fit her like my Barbie’s velvet gloves fit her tiny stiff hands, easy to put on, easy to take off. Magic.

Of course, Billy explained, Mom didn’t really want Santa to burn up in our fireplace. Still, it was unsettling. Later, she tucked us both in bed, nuzzled us, told us stories about Santa’s big night, and about the times she’d glimpsed him in the past. She’d once caught him bringing Rudolf right in on her clean carpet, she said, and another time Santa was rolling around on the floor playing with our dog, Duchess.

“Duchess loves Santa.” She patted Duchess, who was on the bed with us. “Don’t you, girl?”

Duchess wagged her tail and stretched. Billy and I drifted off to sleep. In the morning, there were presents under the tree and Santa’s cookies were gone.

Mom and Dad looked happy.christmas-decor-2013-013

Magic.

Billy caught the magic too, and no one else I’ve ever known has come so close to capturing Rachel’s spirit, style, grace, or humor.

“He’s a lot like me,” Mom often said, and she was absolutely right.

Billy didn’t just love people, he became their most loving and loyal supporter—celebrating with them and letting them take what they would, whether his love, money, home, possessions, or heart. For many years, on the day he cut down his Christmas tree, Billy jumped (I’m quite sure, naked), into a freezing stream in the High Sierras of Northern California. That night, wearing warm jammies and cozy socks, with the tree lit and decorated, and the fireplace burning, he would pile up loads of pillows and sleep underneath his tree. It was part of his magic, I guess.

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So many memories. There are a lot more, but it’s getting late. Anyway, I know you have your own Christmas memories, your own pictures of the people who shaped your view of this truly magical time of year.

May you be at peace, in your heart and in your life. May you recognize the true gifts and hold them dear. And may you be blessed with abundant and unconditional love.

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Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to All!

 

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