Some members of the memoir-writing class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center. Wanda is to my left in the photo (the far right as you look at it).

I am always inspired by the stories my memoir writers read out loud about their past, but sometimes, I’m equally inspired by a story one of them tells me about what’s going on in their present life.

Take Wanda. She has had a significant hearing loss since childhood and sits right next to me during class so she doesn’t miss a word. Her hearing impairment was not detected until she was a young adult, and she often got in trouble for not paying attention in school.

Wanda is 92 years old now and has learned to use a computer to write her essays for class. She’s a thoroughly modern woman: she follows this blog (hi, Wanda!) and sends an email message my way from time to time, too. Last night I checked my email one last time before heading off to bed and found this message from Wanda in my “in box” about a new piece of technology she’d received for free with a prescription from her ear doctor:

Hi Beth !!I’m so excited my caption phone has been installed. The screen lights when the phone rings. The number and name of the caller is printed on the screen. It prints out what the person on the line is saying. It will store the conversation for further reference. It has a personal directory to store all personal phone numbers. With the volume control and the caption I can talk to all of my soft talking friends. These are just a few of the features.
Isn’t that JUST A GREAT piece of technical equipment and a blessing to us hard of hearing folks??
NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, as soon as I remember how to turn the sucker on, I will start calling. (SMILE)
HUGS ALL AROUND!!!

Wanda B.

Beth mentioned last week that we would be heading on Sunday to the Lagunitas Beer Circus to meet up with her nephew Brian. Well, we did. We have photographic evidence, supplied here.

Brian was a duly proud host and he took pains to take care of us, even though he was working.

That’s Brian Ulen–Beth’s nephew and our gracious Lagunitas host at the Beer Circus.

It was a fantastic day that reminded me of (more…)

Know what a beer circus is?

Me, neither.

I’m about to find out, though: On Sunday Mike and I are joining our friends Art and Dana Bergeron to head over to the Lagunitas Beer Circus to celebrate the new brewery the California-based company is  opening on Chicago’s south side. A story in Time Out Chicago says the beer circus (more…)

I’ve come down with spring fever. OK, given that it was 80+ degrees yesterday, muggy, and that we seem to be skipping the spring thing altogether so far here in Chicago, spring fever might be a stretch. But I’ve got the symptoms: Day dreaming, distracted, don’t much want to focus on anything. So today’s MwM will be a slumgullion of sorts. What’s a slumgullion? Well, growing up, I’d wander into the kitchen to bug my mom about dinner. “What’re you cooking?” I’d ask, (more…)

I refer to my mom by her first name, and if you follow this blog, you already know a lot about Flo. Over the years, you may have read:

• that she was only 45 years old when our dad died, and from then on she worked full time and raised us on her own
• a post called Flo on the Pot about her first-ever massage and her first-ever phone call from a hotel bathroom on her 92nd birthday
• that she has enough faith in her blind daughter to have me take care of her overnight by myself after she had out-patient surgery for a malignant melanoma
• about her dance with a young handsome stranger at a Louisville jazz club on her 93rd birthday
• how she partied at Hackney’s with bartender Billy Balducci, Mike, my sisters and me after my presentation at the 2009 Printer’s Row Book Fair
• how we celebrated her 95th birthday in 2011 on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building in Chicago
• a post called Because the night belongs to Flo where she explains that she only wanted two kids, and how it is that she ended up with seven

Hmm. Maybe I’ll end the list with the link to that last provocative post. What can I say? The gal is game! (more…)