Childhood Memories

Growing up in Milwaukee in the 60s   was ..... fun and interesting. Girls really did go around with curlers and matching scarves EVERYWHERE! Unlike now, we wouldn't be caught dead in curlers, the few that actually use curlers!  Big hair was really in too, the bigger the better, looking back now, it's kind of scary!!  So's this picture!Mini skirts, paisley anything, skinny pants - sounds like today - hmm, I wonder if the poodle skirt will be coming back anytime soon.    My friends older...Read Full Story

The Riddle of the British EnglishIn June 1949, my mother the former singer Miss Ann Watt became Mrs Ann Halling through her marriage to my father Patrick Clancy Halling, thereby substituting a Scottish surname for a Danish one. In Ireland, the Watt surname is exclusive to Ulster, home province of my grandfather James Watt, having been carried there by the Scottish and English planters of the late 1600s. It's common in the Scottish Lowlands, especially in the counties of Aberdeenshire and...Read Full Story

We held them in our hands, the smell of pulp and ink rising from their pages. Exciting adventures and the antics of little kids, friendly ghosts and funny animals. The wild west, World War II and the Korean War exploded right before our eyes. Caped crusaders flew through the sky, battling enemies with powers just as mighty as their own. There was horror, there was humor, and there was war. Our friends were teenagers and cowboys, super heroes and detectives, and we could have them all for a...Read Full Story

I don't care much for parades. I have never been fond of them. They seem so pointless unless you are fortunate enough to be where a band is playing and not just marching. One thing I will admit: a parade should be seen in person and not on a TV screen if you wish to get the "full effect" of it all. Yes, a parade should be experienced and not viewed.I've been in a few parades. It's more fun to be in the parade rather than standing on the curb watching it pass by, at least that's how I feel. It...Read Full Story

The Watts of VancouverThrough my mother Ann Halling, nee Angela Jean Elisabeth Watt, I am mainly lowland Scottish and Ulster-Scots. My mother was born in the city of Brandon, Manitoba, but while still an infant she moved with her parents and four siblings to the Grandview area of east Vancouver, Canada. Grandview's earliest settlers were usually tradesmen or shopkeepers, in shipping or construction work, and largely of British origin. My own grandfather James Watt was a a carpenter by trade...Read Full Story

I read about writing a letter to someone who had died. This was a suggestion in the book, Families Writing by Peter Stillman. He presents quite a variety of ideas to get the whole family turned on to writing. The idea of the letter, in particular, caught my attention. Often when someone dies, part of the grief we feel centers on things we wish we’d expressed to that person. Writing a letter sounds like such a great way to release some of that pent-up feeling of regret. I’ll suggest this...Read Full Story

If you grew up in the 1950s, here’s a website created by the Ames Historical Society that will instantly transport you back to those days. Be sure you have the speakers turned on for your computer. Have pen and paper ready to note down fleeting thoughts that you’ll want to write about later. Maybe you’ll chose to write about your favorite songs from that decade or learning to dance in your friend’s basement with a 45 playing on the boxy record player. Perhaps you’ll write about your comic...Read Full Story

We fought with more than toy soldiers. Children were provided with an endless array of weapons with which to play. Hubley, Mattel, Marx, Daisy and Nichols meant as much to us as Colt, Smith and Wesson and Remington did to adults.War was my favorite game. I led many a charge at Gettysburg, swept the plains as the cavalry and the Sioux. The woods around the lake were the jungles of Guadalcanal; the great woodlands of the French and Indian wars. World War I was fought in the field behind the...Read Full Story

As I went off to school in the fall of 1960, the country was caught in the grip of another presidential election. John F. Kennedy was creating a stir throughout the nation. Here was a young man, only in his forties, running for the highest office in the land, and he wasn't afraid to criticize our country and all its flaws. He was running against Richard M. Nixon, who had been our Vice-President, a man who stood for the way things were.What did we kids know about it? Presidents and elections...Read Full Story

Trains have always been an important part of my life. My Dad worked on the old Pennsylvania Railroad line, staying with it as it became the Penn-Central, and finally Conrail. The railroad clothed and fed us, paid the mortgage, and kept my Dad employed for forty years. The money was good, the perks even better, and the pension plan has kept my parents secure in their old age.A special day for me and my brother would be a trip to whatever section of Philadelphia Dad was assigned to. We would be...Read Full Story