32 Linden Avenue, 1943-1965
32 Linden Avenue is perched high up on a hill overlooking a small town in western Pennsylvania and is the heart of this evocative journey through the author's fragmented memories of Appalachia. The murmuring of the women, the love and everyday lives of those living in the hard hill country and then the drenching of those memories in the deep hushed and hovering Protestant faith of that time and that place is woven into a spell drenched in the detailed memories of everyday life.
A child, temporarily separated from her father and mother and brother by fate, found magic and succor, and most of all enduring love. The young mother sees the same magic through older eyes and in the midst of the pain of her mothers final illness and bitter frustrated life is, as when a child, comforted by her family from the hill. Haunted throughout her life, the author sees all this from even older eyes and vows that her children, and now grandchildren, shall not be deprived of the chance to seize meaning and beauty and, thus, comfort from these remembrances.
Dreams
Sailing is the prism through which a lifetime of adventures isfiltered. Separated by war and fate, these adults and childrencame together after the WWII and reknit themselves into afamily on the water. Learning the techniques of sailing in aComet class dingy, they then ventured out onto Lake Ontarioin a wood-hulled sloop for a month-long cruise. Lessons learnedabout preparation for adventures; lessons learned about thegarnering of techniques and their worth. The fascination withNeiman Marcus, which goes back to the war years, is explored.And always, joy. Joy in ice skating, joy in being a water creature,joy in climbing trees, and finally in great old age, joy in beingfulfilled as an artist.