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MY FRIEND’S DAD WAS A SCREAMING EAGLE. WHO KNEW?
When you start asking questions, you get some astonishing answers. Our friend, Rick Sirois, told us quite a few years ago that he and his brother had come upon military medals and ribbons in a shoebox found in their father’s desk drawer. The two brothers decided to put all of this memorabilia into a shadow…
Progress Report
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a compulsive writer. So, where I have been since April? Not writing any blog postings, that’s obvious. Let me tell you. It’s been over a year since I thought I had finished writing the book I’ve been compiling of my Uncle Joe’s stories. Which I started in…
This family legend is excerpted from my upcoming book: Lighter Than Air: The 20s, The 30s, The War, and a Marriage Made in Heaven …a compilation of the stories told (and retold) by my Uncle, Joe Flynn. ~~~ In January of 1925, a total eclipse of the sun was predicted, and storekeepers everywhere were nervous….
Wartime Wedding – March 3, 1943
Tuesday the three women made arrangements for a reception. They knew how many to plan for because they had made all those phone calls. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what else they were up to. My job was just to stay out of their way. Rosemary had set up a cot for me, and…
Wartime Wedding – Getting Ready – March 1, 1943
I hadn’t seen Rosemary for over a year, since those couple of days right after Pearl Harbor. I was long gone and didn’t know when I’d ever be back. But ever since I had proposed to her, by letter, and she had written back “That’s a good idea,” we both knew that when—if—I got back,…
The Last Chapter: Done! (Well, Drafted at least)
Finally! Chapter 44 of my compilation of Uncle Joe’s Stories just rolled out of my printer. That’s not to say the book is “done.” But it’s starting to be done. And if it never gets published, at least my children and grandchildren will have a big slice of family history (and entertainment) to pass along….
Photo above: Grammy Flynn “Ma” with Mary and Joe(?) 1917(?) When Uncle Joe and Aunt Rosemary brought my grandmother to see Mary’s new home shortly after moving day, the story she told them was an incredible surprise–yet no surprise at all. Joe pulled his car into driveway (oval cedar shrubs on the left, a massive conifer…
The weeks immediately following our family’s move must have been chaotic. There was my mother with a two-week old baby and five other children. Kathy (just sixteen months old) had been brought home by Aunt Sadie and Uncle George, who had cared for her at their home in Brighton for several weeks bridging the move. (They…
Ann J lived at corner of Brush Hill Road and Fairmount Avenue. What a place! “The Brown Estate.” (Who were these Browns? I never knew.) The house was not visible from the end of the gravel driveway, where the gardener’s house stood guard. So I’d go crunching down the gravel driveway past carriage house, very…
When you were a kid in the 1950s, if you had to get some place or wanted to see your friends, you walked. Mothers did not drive their children around. For one thing, there was usually only one car in a family, and often the father took that car to work. From 376, there were…