A home in that yonder city
by chuckofish
It is January 19 and time to note once again the birthday of our dear mother, Mary, born in 1926. She would be 95! She would not recognize much about our world today and I have no doubt she would feel even more of a pilgrim and a stranger than she did in 1988 when she died.
Be that as it may, I will toast her tonight and watch one of her favorite movies–something with Errol Flynn or John Wayne or possibly Shane. I will remember sitting in the darkened theater with her and how she would lean over and whisper to me to notice something special. I will think of her in that house by the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow.
P.S. Happy Birthday to Dolly Parton, who as you know, celebrates her birthday on this date as well. Happy 75th!
dual personalities 
The Joan Didion came as a surprise, although perhaps I should have known that she could appreciate JW. I’ll be thinking of our mother today, as every day. Indeed, she would have had a hard time dealing with the world today — death may be a mercy more often than not.
95 and 75, wow! Happy birthday to Grandma Mary — will be thinking of her (and you) today.
Happy Birthday to Mary and Dolly! I love that picture–the big bow, her jacket, and her skates.
The Joan Didion essay is pretty famous and I have quoted from it before: https://dualpersonalities.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/at-the-bend-in-the-river-where-the-cottonwoods-grow/
I can’t listen to Didion reading it without crying!