Letters from Rona / Sort by date

If you do not drive and haven't hitchhiked since Jim Morrison was singing "Light My Fire," a trip to Durham, New Hampshire presents a logistical conundrum. When my school held a reunion in Durham, two of us had to ask, "Who will drive me there?" The other one is blind. Me, I'm just phobic. I may not have the best excuse for breaking into a sweat at the thought of driving, but I do have the best, wittiest and most altogether delightful chauffeur any vehicularly challenged person could hope for: my friend Anne, the confidante of my mostly bleak adolescence. [more]

Every storied house deserves a name. Think Astor Court, scene of Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Or Sissinghurst Castle, home of one of Britain's most celebrated gardens. Or Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's cantilevered masterpiece in the leafy depths of a nature reserve. Then there's Maynard Hall, a name unheard-of even by the people who own it---a cheerful, 30-something couple who answered my knock at their door one recent weekend, just as they were rallying four kids to head off somewhere. [more]

Almost 50 years after I hung up my one and only pair of pointe shoes, I seized my chance to wear a real Russian tutu---a gloriously frothy creation with more layers of silk tulle than there are petals in a bouquet of peonies. "Hey, I can dance!" I exclaimed. I hadn't bargained on the curtsey. Real ballerinas drop to the floor and I'm a real sexagenarian. [more]

I didn't admit to an attack of nerves the week before my school reunion. But there had to be a reason why I lay awake night after night, my brain on high alert. [more]

Once upon a time, when Expo 67 was welcoming the world and Sergeant Pepper topped the charts, I willingly answered to a nickname. This would amaze everyone who's been met with a frosty stare for addressing me as anything other than Rona. To be honest, I'm amazed myself, but only because I'd forgotten that a high school friend used to call me...oh, do I dare tell you? [more]

It's been years since I discovered the black, ruthless wit of quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan. I admired him for savaging the myth of disability as both pitiful and ennobling. His death had me combing the Internet for stories of his life and forgotten snippets of his gleefully outrageous art. That's when I discovered just how far this man would go to reveal his broken places in print. As a woman, I shuddered. But I'm still a fan. Here's why. [more]

In Henniker, N. H. (population less than 5,000), you can't order sushi, watch Toy Story 3 or buy gladiator sandals with platform heels. But this time of the year, if you know where to look, you can pick enough unsprayed, explosively flavourful blueberries to fill any number of pies, and you won't pay a cent for the privilege. Whoever owns the berry patch can no longer be bothered to charge the pickers who tramp through a tangle of weeds to claim a share of the bounty. My niece Audrey, who lives nearby, is a picker so keen, she drives around with her gear at the ready. [more]

I had just put in my request for a table at the Penny Cluse Café, which serves the best breakfast in Burlington, Vt. and among the best we've enjoyed in more than 30 years of travel, when I looked at my right wrist and saw that my bracelet was missing. Not just any bracelet but a gift from my husband---a wide yet nearly weightless band of linked chrome beads that draped like silk on my skin. [more]

The last time anyone read to me, I might have been leaning on my elbows at a scratched wooden desk, waiting for Mrs. Sawyer to begin another chapter of Beezus and Ramona. A hush descended on 30-odd fractious kids like a snowfall worthy of a Christmas card. At story time Kevin Donahue forgot to call me "Doughnut." I forgot about my struggle with long division. The whole class forgot about who'd been invited to the birthday party of the hour and who'd been left off the list. One question united us all: what sort of mischief would those Quimby sisters make next? [more]

The last time I tasted Ben & Jerry's, it came in a tub from my local supermarket and tasted of a corporate freezer. But once upon a time it was dessert nirvana. And the only place you could buy it was a converted gas station in Burlington, Vermont, where my husband and I launched an ice cream odyssey that continues to this day. [more]

Back in the prime of Father Knows Best, when Betty Crocker ruled the kitchen book shelf and TV ads extolled the health-giving properties of Wonder Bread, I thought the last word in ice cream could be had at Howard Johnson's in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. HoJo's was a thriving chain then, renowned both for the orange roofs of its faux colonial restaurants and for 28 flavours of ice cream served with a special scoop, so that your treat perched precariously atop its cone like an outsize tutu on a pear-shaped ballerina. [more]

I hadn't planned on returning this August to the home town I couldn't wait to leave. It seemed I had more urgent things to do than schlep by plane and bus to Durham, New Hampshire, where a gaggle of far-flung alumni from my high school---many of them strangers to each other and just about all them strangers to me---were convening to honour Eleanor and Frank Milliken, two wise and generous-hearted teachers who gave the best part of their careers to our collective intellectual development. [more]