Toy Train Show - American Museum, Andaloro Way

Hi Everyone! It's time again for the Annual Toy Train Show at the Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ! Starting November 28th, 2025 and running thru February 1st, 2026, the Show will be feature O and O-27 gauge toy trains, from the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s. Lionel, Marx and American Flyer engines, with cars attached, will race on two different platforms, each one decorated with vintage buildings, and other structures to give a traditional holiday appearance! The Museum is open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 3pm.

Hope to see you soon at the Museum!

Jeffrey Norcross

The Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ NJ 08093 856-812-1121 sjmuseum@aol.com

Typewriters Part 2 - Underwood 1919 No.5

Also languishing up in the attique was a 1919 Underwood which I no longer remember how it was acquired. I have had it for as long as I remember. I can't imagine how I lugged that incredibly heavy cast iron framed monster from apartment to apartment, and to my house and up the steps to the attic! But today, I hauled it back down again, once again in risk of life and limb as I am 80 as of last week, and too old to be taking things up and down from the attic.

Although I managed to get it down and onto a shelf in my bedroom, emptied recently by my having donated most of my books to The Free Books Project of Camden, New Jersey, that's as far as I got. I am too tired now to dust it off and look for a serial number BUT a perusal of models indicates it is a No 5, and early model built in the first one or two decade of the twenthieth century.

Perhaps one of the reasons the typewriters have spoken to me so seductively is that I began my working career as a typist - first on an addressograph machine, another stalwart of the bygone era, and later, after a couple of years at Peirce Business School (now junior college) I became a secretary. By that time, we used electric typewriters. But these were the tools of my trade as the sewing machines were the tools of my grandmother's trades.

One line from a piece I found on the internet stood out - the evolution from manufacture of guns, to sewing machines to typewriters and then by World War 2, back to guns again.

John T. Underwood who founded the business built it from the manufacture of ink after he saw the success of Remington (yep the gun anufacturer) and soon, Underwood was the titan of typewriters in the WORLD. The Underwood 1919 5 was virtually indestructable which was part o its downfall as it never needed replacement. It was the tool of the governmental beaurocrat.

I began my typing life on a manual, befere the electric was available and I remember building up finger strength. At the peak of my office career as a secretary at W. B. Saunders Publishing Company in the 1960's, I could type 90n words per minute.

After I get the Rheinmetal repaired, I will see how fast I can type on it. The Underwood has a nice typing feel and a satisfying click, but I don't think I can afford at present to have them both restored.

Maybe at some point I will watch a YouTube and learn how to clean the old Underwood, and then find out how to get a ribbon or re-ink the one it has. It seems a fairly simple machine. (Yes, I know what a delusion this is!)

It is definitely in the realm of possibility however, that I will have the Underwood cleaned and restored at some point in the Philadelphia Typewriter Company that I will be visiting with my sister and the Rheinmetall next week.

It is interesting when you search the internet for some item and come across the collectors. I love reading the research they have done and engaging with their passion. My passion and interest for these items lacks their depth. I am a dilettant. Still, I say to my typewriter and sewing machine friends, nice getting to know you!

Happy Trails - wherever they may take you!

as always please contact me by my e-maill if you wish to comment as that part of blogspot is polluted by spammers wrightj45@yahoo.com as always

Rheinmetall Portable typewriter S 09/2552 USSR Occupied Germany

The Life Story of Really Old Things -

A few days ago I was lamenting the loss of the freedom of CD's because I liked being able to put a cd in the dash and play an album I wanted to hear. I am so far behind in IPhone and modern car stuff that I can't do that with my current technology although I am aware that it can be done.

At home, in my e-mail newsfeed, I came across an article about how some young people are embracing old technologies like cd's and cassettes for that very freedom and autonomy. We don't all want to be tethered to the cloud or wifi.

The thought persisted and I was thinking how I wished I had a portable typewriter so I wasn't dependent on my always unreliable printer. I have spent literally hundreds of dollars on having the repair guy come out and get it working when I was doing a project and none of the usual processes could get it working again. Every storm knocked it (wifi) out. I had to turn off the router, unplug everything then wait a couple of hours, plug everything in and wait for the router and hope it would work, which it often did not. So then I would start replacing the expensive ink cartridges that seemed to get used up or dry up on their own regardless of usage. How cool it was in the past to put in a piece of paper and type what I wanted and there it was!

I looked up vintage portable typewriters and found most places that had them on offer had closed and their telephone numbers didn't work anymore. Amazon had them starting at #190. Suddenly, I remembered I had a very old portable up in the attic that I had used years ago when I did presentations on World War 2 Women Journalists! It was a 1947 (?) Rheinmetal portable in perfect condition, though gummed up by age. I had bought it for $25 from a vintage shop that has since gone out of business. It was a popular prop in that presentation and kids in particular were entranced by how you could hit the keys and the words came out on paper! Back then, it worked.

I took my life in my hands and climbed the attic steps and brought down my prize. It was so gummed up the keys couldn't rouse themselves to the task so I looked up typewriter repair and restoration. Again, all the ones in New Jersey were out of business, but there was one in Philadlphia that was still open and functioning on Passyunk Street. I called and indeed they were still there and still repairing and restoring. I told the man on the line my model name and number and he said it was a very good model. In fact, my online search had told me that my model S 09.2552 was a very good model. That was what the S stood for 'Special high quality' and the 09 gave the location which was Sommerda, Germany. It also said it was USSR Occupied Germany, so it was a post war machine.

I had to decide if it was worth it to put that money out to restore the typewriter but I decided that it was because it seems to me that something that had survived bombs, occupation, all the destruction and chaos of that part of Europe for almost 80 years deserved respect and care. Maybe I feel that way because I just turned 80.

My sister, bless her generous heart, has agreed to go with me next week to take the machine to the repair shop. I am excited about this new venture into the past.

Some of you may have read my posts about my 100 year old Singer sewing machine and my quest for a 100 year old sewing machine table to go with it. This makes me think long and hard about these formidable survivors, these hard working companions. I wish the typewriter could type its own story and tell me how it got to New Jersey, how it left Europe, and who it traveled with and when. My heart goes out to these survivors; I guess that makes me a kind of romantic. I still think about the metal trunk I bought that had the letters and baby shoes of a Greek immigrant in it. How sad that these items were unloved and put out into the market. I feel I have rescued this typewriter which, unlike the sewing machine was not a member of my family, but it deserves a family.

If you wish to contact me, please use my e-mail not comments which is polluted by spam. wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happy Trails

Ken Burns' The American Revolution

Last night I watched the 6th episode of Ken Burns' new masterpiece of hisorical documentary, The American Revolution. It has been a passionate interest of mine for decades due to the fact that I was a volunteer for several years at Red Bank Battlefield in National Park, and because I was born in Philadelphia and have been immersed in history since my retirement in 2006.

I always found The American Revolution confusing. I had drawn maps and chronologies to somehow sort out what was going on but it really never emerged from the fog of confusion until I watched this documentary. I have been to many of the nearest most important battle sites from the Revolution such as Morristown which I visited several times including during the big re-enactment event, The Cliveden House in the Battle of Germantown, Valley Forge many times, and of course, the Re-enactment of the Battle of Red Bank which I saw annually and volunteered during (Octobers).

Our Red Bank Battlefield volunteer history club also visited the sites of the Battles of Princeton and Trenton, and we even held in our hands what was claimed to be the skull of Count Von Donop (dna later proved it was not. It was the skull of a Native American Woman). Somehow, I could never get these places in order and I was entirely stumped by Yorktown. (I thought it was all New England and New York) Ken Burns made it all clear at last. He also brought clarity to some of the names and relationships such as the British generals Cornwallis and Howe, and the Continental generals, Greene and Knox, Benedict Arnold and Charles Lee. I actually visited Lee's grave at Christ's Church in Philadelphia. (a passionate atheist his wish was NOT to be buried near a church!)

Themes: One of the things I enjoyed in this monumental undertaking was the use of excerpts from diaries. I had collected and read many of the diaries quoted in the film, the Hessian soldiers, the young soldier, Joseph Plum Martin, the women, Abigail Adams letters, and the writings of the Indigeounos people. Natie Amerians had usually been left out entirely in other depiction of the Revolution or portrayed as merciless savages attacking the frontier folk. This film showed how they were central to the story, and the most impacted by it.

The other theme for me was the suffering. In a time of hand tools, the destruction of hand crafted homes and furnishings, the burning down of entire towns, the destruction of crops and orchards and the starvation that followed. And the suffering of people, young men cut down in their prime by the thousands, entire tribes of Native American peoples slaughtered and displaced. The struggles and terrors of women left alone on farms with children to feed and the constnt threat of marauding foragers who would take the last morsels of food, possible rape and murder the woman and her daughters, and burn down their homes. What a terrible affliction of misery and suffering on people who, like all people in all time, wanted to simply live in peace and survive. Everytime I see a depiction of the suffering at Valley Forge, it literally makes me cry.

This is a huge experiene and one that needs repeating. I am already feeling my clarity and understnding of this vast campaign beginning to cloud. I will watch this 12 hour documentary again, and again, probably every 4th of July, and my unerstanding of what happened will, hopefully grow. So many of the great historians who commented during the film brought out insights that I will ponder and one of them was the impact of this revolution on the revolutions in the 20th century of colonial possessions throwing off the yokes of European conquerors. Just a week ago, I watched a documentary about the Iranian Hostage event, and realized for the first time that what had precipitated it was the attempt of the Iranian revolutionaries to take over the Petroleum processing plant, the biggest in the world, that had been built and owned by Great Britain which took all the profits and kept the Iranians in a kind of peasant/serf vassal relationship.

What I never understood clearly before about the main importance of the locations of the battles was the importance of the shipping ports to re-supply the British forces. I did read a book once that detailed the gargantuan quantities of cattle, pigs, barrels of salted pork and fish, and other supplies needed to feed armies of the size of 20,000 and so on for months, and even years. There isn't much talk about that in most movies and documentaries and I admit when I read the quantities I was astonished. As always - please write to me directily if you wish to share in the conversation as the comments section of blogspot is ruined by spam. My e-mail is wrightj45@yahoo.com Happy Trails to YOU!

Zen Mind Beginners Mind - Books that changed our lives

In my e-mail feed there was a post from NPR about a new series they were running where authors, critics, and others write about going back to books from their past that changed their lives.

This idea has stayed with me and I have been thinking about the many many books that changed my life, and about books in general. Over the past couple of years, I have donated thousands of books, the major part of my personal library to the Free Books Project because I am losing my vision to Fuch's Dystrophy and reading is too hard for me now. There was no point in holding on to something I could no longer use, so I gave them away.

I haven't gone back to many books over the years anyhow because there are always new ones and because my interests change as my life changes. But a book sprange into my mind last Sunday during discussion hour at my Friends Meeting in Woodbury and I ordered it from amazon. Of course, I can't read it, so I am going to give it away, but I have two forms of borrowing audio books and I am listening to it on audio book: Hoopla (a free app from my library, and audible, a 'pay for app' that I can use on my phone or laptop.)

Every night, I listen to audio books for about an hour. Usually, I listen to light weight entertainment, like someone teling me a story. Sometimes, I dip into something deeper or more challenging, such as "Man-Up" by Cynthia Miller.

I first encountered Zen Mind Beginner's Mind in 1970. It is a series of lectures given by Zen teacher Suzuki and it was the book that brought popular attention to Buddhism to the counterculture in the US. All the young peope my ex-husband and I knew back in our hippy days were reading it and I suppose our dip into drug culture via smoking marijuana and taking LSD was the inspiration for learning more about our minds and thinking. I believe at the time there was another book called "The Doors to Perception" and we all became aware of both 'perception' and that it could be observed and altered. We felt it drug induced but we wanted to find it naturally.

This isn't such an odd thing, even today, when even the most mainstream people regularly alter their perception with sedatives, anti-depressants, and of course, the most popular one of all, alcohol. Also, at present, November 2025, in the majority of the states where marijuana is legal there are almost as many dispensaries as there are pharmacies or convenience stores. My little town has THREE!

My fist introduction to Zen Buddhism and indeed, the book, "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind" was baffling and even confounding, Everything seemed to contradict everything else, which, I realized in time, was part of the understanding because it is teaching us how to struggle with the most subtle of mind tricks - intellectualizing.

I read so many books on Zen Meditation, in particular, in the beginning, Jack Kornfeld, Phd, psychologist and Zen teacher. After the Englightment, the Laundry, was one of his best sellers. My goal, always, was to release myself from enslavement to moods, to understand more about how my mind was blown hither and yond and to release myself from captivity in the more negative and paintful experiences. I understand now that there is no escape from these normal experiences of ife in the corporeal world, but you can shorten the duration of the suffering when you can understand that, like the weather, it is a passing field of forces.

It seems to me that this is the most essential struggle of our existence. People die every day, every hour, because they can't endure the emotional pain of various states. They become drug addicts, alcoholics, even suicides because they can't find escape from the more painful states of mind such as depression.

Along with millions of other peopke I hoped that Zen Meditation offered a route into understanding and perhaps controlling these states of mind.

What I eventually discovered was that Pema Chodrin was the guide for me. She is an abbot and Zen teacher in Gumpo Abby in Canada, and I have read every book she has written and they, along with her cd's saved my life during the most emotionally and mentally painful period of my life. I bought a 5 cd changer, for those too young to remember, a music/media player that you could load 5 cd's onto for continuous playing - used before the cell phone was invented. At night when I couldn't sleep, I would load her cd's and her soothing voice and simplified, uncluttered and clear lectures would calm the storm of suffering in my heart and mind and lead me out of the prison.

Listening to the Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, reminds me of how much it sounds like Gobbledy Gook. In fact it is what reminded me of that old phrase Gobbledy Gook. It seems to me that it ties as many knots as it unravels. But now, at age 80, and after years and years of reading and thinking and studying and meditation, I understand a little more easily what Suzuki is talking about and how he is talking about it.

One thing that both confounded and infuriated me and stuck inmind for years for pondering was the concept that our minds "Make the world" = surely not - certainly the world is empirically existing regardless of our minds. But over time, I came to understnd how our developed filters change and alter and translate the world, "Perceive it" and make something out of it that we come believe is the whole thing, the real thing, but it is, in fact, a creation.

Recently I saw a marvelous science program on how the brain works. Simply, the idea that caught my attention was that we have a limited and unique and individual ability to take in the information about the world. We know that by simple things such as how our dogs can smell things beyound the abilities ofour olfactory sense, and cats can see things we can't see, and other creatures can percieve sensory information unavailable to us, so we know there is more going on out there than we can take in. Our brains take in what they can and then fabricate the rest to make a complete picture.

That's how we "make the world." Finally I get it, and what's more, from reading all the Zen books, I actually understand it as well. Of course that is only the barest inkling in the challenge of using that information to 'control' our minds and emotions.

Composure has become something I identify as an admirable trait. I am not a terribley skilled practitioner of it, but I have known people who were and I have admired them. It has taken a lifetime to identify what that trait was that I admired in those folks, my Godfather Neal Schmidt had it, my Grandfather Joseph Lyons had it, Joyce Connelly, a volunteer from Red Bank Battlefield had it. These people could demonstrate composure under the most stressful of situations. How did they get it? They seemed to be gifted with more of it than most people. Joyce was always AWARE; when we had meetings of the volunteers and staff at Red Bank Battlefield, say the Book Readers' Club, Joyce was so AWARE of everyone, the forces driving them and all they were saying, and though she had an idea and a book to suggest that she found especially meaningful, she could wait patiently, make her case in a composed and calm manner, and accept the decision of the group with calm acceptance. I remeber the book she really wanted us to read "Escaped and Never Caught" the story of Ona Judge, a woman enslaved to Martha Washington. I immediately bought the book that Joyce recommended, the group chose a different book, a book about the First Rhode Island Regiment. The group, at that time, was composed by mainly men, so it wasn't surprising that they should choose a military title over one about a woman and a slave. Nonetheless, Joyce respected me and we formed a friendship over my choice of that book and our discussions about it later. In a very real sense, I loved Joyce and admired her. Joyce Connelly died from cancer.

So, I have always wanted to understand states of mind, mind and others, and to learn more about the mechanisms that drive them. I wanted to be released from the more painful and embarrassing ones and to acquire a better practice of the more admirable ones, liek composure. So I read Zen Buddhism, and books on psychology, and joined the Quakers! To me, The best Quaker book on this topic was Rex Ambler's pamphlet put out by the Pendle Hill Quaker publisher, The Early Mysicism of Quakers. The books describes how they discovered and practiced meditation and then goes on to compare it to various forms of phsychology that use meditation techniques to help people understand and work to unravel the snares in which they find themselves caught.

The most recentl insight that I have discoverd from a New Years Resolution offered by an article in the New York Times, was to take note of when I feel happy. Yesterday, I was pulling out of my drive way when the Fed Ex delivery van was pulling up to the curb. The delivery man handed me my package of 80th Birthday photograhs which I had printed by Walgreens Pharmacy photo department. I was thrilled to have them to take to lunch with me. I got to the corner of the street and a group of about 15 men women and children were engaged in a Christmas decorating party on the lawn of a house and they all waved happily to me, and I experienced a fireworks of happiness. Zen has taught me, however, that this too is a transient state, so enjoy it an dlet it go. You can't chase that state, any more than you could be excited by an array of fireworks that never burned out or stopped. Zen Mind Beginner's Mind wasn't the best, but it was the first and it was the KeY to understanding the mystery of existence for me.

Happy Trails! and Calm seas.

as always, if you wish to correspond, please use my e-mail because 'comments' in blogspot is polluted by spam. >p/> wrightj45@yahoo.com

My 80th Birthday and The Robin's Nest, Mount Holly 11/13/25

The Lost Gypsy Caravan

This was my best birthday ever. The greatest gift was to see how many friends I had and how much they liked and cared about me. My neighbors, Debby and Eleanor took me out to lunch at Maritsa's and Debby gave me a bouquet and a great soup bowl that can go in the oven, the microwave or the freeer! My old teaching buddies, Jacky Brady, Joanne Wells, and Nancy Thomas gave me lunch at Maritsa's also! Then my daughter drove me to The Blue Plate in Mullica Hill for lunch with her and my sister Sue. Yesterday on my actual birthday, Sue and I went to Mount Holly to the Robin's Nest.

The Robin's Nest was a restaurant I used to visit regularly when I was able to drive all over the place. There were so many things in Mount Holly that I liked, the antique shop in the parking lot on Church St., the Christmas Shop, the hadicraft shop, the basket weaver, the gypsy caravan. I haven't been there since the pandemic and so much has changed.

At the Robin's Nest, I had potato leek soup because I always liked their soups. When we parked, I hoticed the little colorful gypsy caravan that used to be parked on the grassy lot next to the parking lot was gone. I asked our waittress what happened to it and she said she never saw any gypsy caravan and she had been there for 30 years! She made me feel like I had imagined it or made it up! Fortunately there were two women in a nearby table and one of them told me she remembered the gypsy caravan. I always liked it because it was so colorfully painted, tiny and beautiful and reminded me of the open road. When we got back home, after I dropped Sue off, I searched the internet via google to no avail. No mention of the gypsy caravan on anything relating to Mount Holly. That little gypsy caravan is really and truly gone. Also gone, the arts and crafts shop, the Christmas Shop, The Quilt shop. Susan said she thinks the pandemic killed all those little stores. At least The Robin's Nest was still there.

I still have two more lunches in the birthday festival, today at Kunkels with Joanne Spector, my old gym buddy, if I am giving 'origin labels' to my friends, and tomorrow at The Station, with Sue Troy, an old Merchantville High School friend. She also does art and I want to introduce her to the gallery.

Interestingly, at The Blue Plate with my daughter and sister, I ran into a friend from when I worked at Gloucester City High School, Kathy Tice, school secretary. She was always the sweetest, calmest, kindest woman.

If I gave this birthday a theme, it would be friendship. A secondary theme would be change and saying goodbye. For two years or so, I have been feeling as though I am sayig a slow goodbye to the world that I love! My medical reports have been so good this autumn that I have optimism that I may make it to 90, but I already feel like I am from the past and not entirely fitted for the future. A third theme would be TREES. I have been thinking and photographing and painting tree pictues a lot. When I die, I am to have my ashes scattered under the Salem Oak seedling tree we planted on Arbor day at Woodbury Friends Meeting. I want to be there with the peaceful people.

From that first tree on Warnock Street in Philadelphia in the 1940's and 1950's trees have been in my life and important to me. I have felt them to be friends of mine in this world.

A fourth theme can be visitors from the past - the memorabilia from my Godfather Neal Schmidt, deeased 5 years ago that came in the mail from his family friend, Mary Cook, Sheila from Tom Nicholas's woodland hermitage in the 1970's, Kathy Tice from the GCH years, and Sue Troy from my Merchantville High School y years. >p/> Lavinia gave me a flower press for my birthday and I am going to press the flowers from the bouquet that Debby gave me.

Happy Tails and if anyone out there remembers the gypsy caravan please let me know at wrightj45@yahoo.com

November 7, 2025 Joni Mitchell's birthday - age 82

I celebrate my 80th birthday in the same week as Joni Mitchell's 82nd birthday. I feel as though Joni's music spoke for a wide segment of the women of my generation, single mothers or single mothers who gave up their children for adoption, artists making their way in a male dominated world, struggling to find love and artistic, creative satisfaction and success, trying to express our experience of living in the world. I love the line in one of Joni's songs "songs are like tatoos" and her songs did pierce your skin and stay with you, but much deeper than skin, right to the heart.

Joni Mitchell's lyrics are poetic brilliance and narrative genius. You are there with her as she navigates her dangerous liason with the 'coyote' and his two other women, and in the tour bus with her as she passes the tragic farm house on fire. She has music for every stretch of the soul, from playful 'Cary' to the despair of 'Blue'.

Joni, I am so glad you were there to put our world into music and share our experience! "I wish I had a river, to skate away on."

Love and Happy Birthday, another 80 year old, still independent, still living

wrightj45@yhaoo.com

James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ

'Join us in celebrating the Holiday Season at the historic James and Ann Whitall House. Step into a world of timeless elegance as we invite you to our beautifully decorated historic house this holiday season! Experience the magic of the holidays surrounded by charming architecture and rich history, all adorned with festive decor.'

December 5, 6 7 from 3 p.. to 8 p.m.

Bayshore Discovery Center, Bivalve, NJ

'Flagship: Monument on the Move' ]On November 1, the Bayshore Center and the Monuments to Migration and Labor (NJMML) project hosted Flagship: Monument on the Move, the first of three events that NJMML Monument Artist Immanuel Oni is organizing in the South Jersey project region. The event focused on exploring the migration histories of African Americans who came to the Port Norris area from the Chesapeake Bay region, to work in the oyster industry.'

For two or three years, I worked as a tour guide at the Bayshore Discovery Project. If you haven't been there ist is the re juvenated and reanimated ghost town of the former multimillion dollar oyster industry. There are so many things to see "down South" and I strongly recommend you go exploring from Greenwich on the Cohansey to Bivalve, Shelpile on the Bay. There are a couple of nearby boat marinas if you go to Greenwich and one has a nice restaurant though you need to check because I am not certain of the days, hours or seasons.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, the WPA recorded live interviews with people who were trucked from down South to work in the oyster canning industry. The Museum at the Bayshore Discovery Project has audio versions of those interiwws, as wel as the standing stations used by the shuckers who could wield their oyster lnives like ninjas. These trucked in season workers were housed in dormatory style bunk houses at Shell Pile, named for the reekin mountains of shells under the blanket of screaming seagulls. These mountains of shells were ground into gravel for roads and powder for fertilizer.

There is so much to learn about this once thriing industry in both New Jersey and New York. There is also a wonderful raised trail into the marshlands for bird lovers.

Happy trails through New Jersey's deep and fascinating history wrightj45@yahoo.com

Germany 1969 and 70 - a fragment for Marilyn

I was talking with my friend, Marilyn Quinn, today about our years in Germany when we were 21 and 22 and we discussed writing our memories. She had been a student in Munich and I had been an army wife in Heilbronn am Neckar. I have books worth of memories but I will put only a fragment or two here and send the link to Marilyn.

My landlady's name was Frau Froeschle and she ran a butcher shop as well as several rental properties in a kind of atrium style modern architectural houseing complex The buildings were concrete and two stories tall. Our apartment faced a paved courtyard in the front and a cooperative garden courtyard in the back. our apartment, which we were able to rent because it was the Vietnam war and the army post, Wharton Barracks, was full of soldiers either going to Vietnam or getting put together to go home from Vietnam, so officers had the option of living "on the economy" which meant an apartment in the village, rather than on the army post. It was a remarkably clean little town and all the windows had window boxes with red geraniums in them.

Our apartment had a small back bedroom with one plump bed and a red down duvet, a slanted ceiling and a window with a view of the back garden where each morning I could see half a dozen stout housewives in cotton dresses, aprons, head scarves and laced up construction boots hoeing and raking and working on their vegetable patches.

There was a small central room off of which was a tiny living room, furnished with contemporary modern German "mobel" (furniture) a small slim wooden frame sofa, matching chair and a coffee table. My favorite piece of furniture was in the kitchen which faced the concrete courtyard; it was a creamy yellow cabinet with a door behind which there was a built in sifter for flour, and a pull out tray for rolling out dough. There was a small table and chair set, a kitchen sink and gas range. The bathroom was also small and had a 'new to me' fixture, a tiny backpack sized tank that held the hot water - that was it - no more hot water when that was used up!

Below us lived an interesting array of temporary neighbors. At first there was an American couple from New England but my first lieutenant husband told me I couldn't fraternize because her husband was a lower rank and it compromised his position as an officer. The Boston wife told me the landlady's butcher shop specialized in horse meat and they had bought some and made hamburgers and it was good. I was horrified. I don't think she and I would have been friends anyhow, but they moved back to the states and were replaced by a group of Middle Eastern, maybe Turkish, foreign workers. We only ever saw the women, about three or four of them, draped head to toe in long swaths of colorful fabrics.

The landlady, Frau Froeschle, was a strangely malevolent person who wore a phony smile below remarkably hostile eyes, they fairly gittered with some kind of malice. I remember coming out of the bedroom one morning and finding her standing behind the full glass door of our apartment like a character from a horror movie. It wssn't easy to ascertain her purpose other than to check on my housekeeping because she spoke little to no English (allegedly) and I spoke little to no German at the time. Soon, however I was enrolled in a language class on the post.

Frequently Frau Froeschle got drunk and raged out her kitchen window, also second story (over her butcher shop) and facing my kitchen window. She would hang out the window in a black satin slip with a bottle of wine in her hand and scream curses at me, or at our apartment, hard to say which. In all our other encounteres she was coldly polite.

One of the few major incidents we encountered was the day the draped women in the apartment below left their apartment with the door open and a toddler inside. He closed the door on them and there was something cooking which was soon burning and smoke was coming out from under their door. They were screaming in their language, speaking no German or English, and I came down to see what was causing the commotion.

By tht time, I knew at least these a few words: "Feuer" und "Hilfe, bitte hilfe!" which I shouted at Frau Froeschle's grandson who was working in the paved courtyeard. He was a surly and hostile youth of about 16 or 17, who usuallyignored my greetings but he put aside his dislike long enough to come see what was the matter. A stout, muscular youth, he put his shoulder to the women's apartment door and smashed it open. They ran in and grabbed the todder; he opened the windows, and then they all left as quickly as they had arrived. The women went into their apartment immediately and closed the broken door the best they could, all leaving me in the hallway without a word or nod of thanks.

We never managed to cross the cultural barrier and whenever they saw me they covered their faces and fled as though I were a plague carrier.

The only friend I made those years was a German bar girl named Trudy who also lived across the couryard next to Frau Froeschle's apartment. A beautiful platinum blonde in her early 30's who spoke fairly good English, She was supported by a succession of young American soldiers, as a sort of wife. That made it possible for the soldiers to spend free time off base in a home and family type setting. She often joked to me about her boyfriends and how she would trick them into buying her new furniture or other expensive items by telling them she was pregnant and needed to get an abortion. She had three small children already. That is a story for another time.

In those years, I was so young, only 21 and 22, I really never gave much thought to Frau Froeschle or her personal history, and it is embarrassing to me now to think how little I thought of anything like history or the war which had only been over for 25 years at that time. Many of the storekeepers as well as Frau Froeschle would have been alive during the war and enemies of the Americans. We were occupying their country. Next time I write, I will tell about what I learned about the history of Heilbronn am Neckar and how I found out about it.

Auf wiedersehen, wrightj45#yahoo.com

My posts for the next few days will be devoted to my upcoming 80th Birthday

Turning 80 years old. Begun October 30, 2025

Friends my age are surpised that we have gotten old. Each of us has faced it in a different way. Many cling to what I think of as a kind of disguise: they color their hair, wear make-up, and some have cosmetic surgery, face lifts, injections and so on. I choose to dig into the reality of this moment. To me, increasingly, it feels like an accomplishment to have survived for 80 years. Each day I read reports in my e-mail news feed about people half my age dying from cancers, drug overdoses, murder, automobile accidents. And heaven knows there have been plenty of oppportunities for the death dealer to call in my note: traveling in dangerous places with my ex-husband in Europe (Morocco, Turkey) even just riding with him on some of the dangerous highways we traveled. And of course the classic death notice for women - domestic violence, childbirth! I survived plagues - polio, the Corona Virus Epidemic, (the influenza epidemic after WW1 killed my biological grandmother) and a cardiac event a few years back plus a severe Diverticuitis hospitalization - so many ways to die and yet, here I am two weeks away from my 80th birthday.

So with Marcel Proust in mind, I decided to slip around into the past and also, in the very modern way, to kind of document the two weeks leading to my 80th birthday - my favorite form, the JOURNAL. Along with the blog posts, I will be doing this in a paper book format; I have a very nice hard bound Art Journal that will be perfect for this, but I will also do it here.

The mental onstruction of this literary project really begins with lunch on Thursday with two friends, Nancy and Barbara. We ate at Maritsa's in Maple Shade which is a good place to start because it is located in Maple Shade, where I lived my teen years, on Roland Avenue in the 1950's.

The more I contemplate my life, the life of an ordinary woman, the more I see the significance of it. Perhaps because I studied journals in college and saw history from the eyes of real people living ordinary lives in what is perhaps NEVER ordinary times! Interesting to read the journal of a Hessian soldier in an army rented by his German overlord to the British to fight in the American colonies during the Revolution, and two or three journals of American colonists during the Revolution; Joseph Plum Martin's being the most famous. Also a young man from Greenwich on the Cohansey River who died in service from a camp disease, and a middle aged wife evicted from her home because her husband in Philadelphia was a loyalist. He fled to Britain and she was forced to take refuge in spare rooms from kind friends throughout the City of Philadelphia.

My life begins on November 13, 1945, the year World War 2 ended, and spans the last 50 years of the 20th Century and the beginning 25 years of the 21st. Talk about interesting times! I made a scrapbook during my scrapbooking period about my life from 1945 to the age of 70. To my disappointment, my friends for my birthday lunch on Thursday had no interest in looking at it, though their lives spanned the same period and it was, after all, a decorative illustrated scrapbook! During the scrapbooking period, I made one for my sister's 50th and my daughter's 30th, but I think I may have been the only person interested. I made one for myself at 70. I loved doing it because it blended collage, autobiography, history and a contemporary art form the scrapbook.

It was a dark and rainy day that we met for lunch on Thursday, October 30th, so the pictures on the sidebars are cloudy and gloomy looking. When I go to Maritsa's I always drive to my old homes, our last family home on Linwood Avenue, our first family home in New Jersey on Roland Avenue, the Pennsauken Creek which bordered our development and our cul de sac, Roland Avenue. On the way home, I pass my old high school which isn't even a high school anymore.

On that subject, so many of my schools are defunct: Merchantville High School, Mary Ethel Costello School in Gloucester City where I taught for over 25 years, the University of Arts in Philadelphia where I also taught for about 25 years, first in the Saturday Lab School and later in the graduate seminar as an adjunct professor. I was very proud of that and here is the reason: I was a grade school misfit - I was a tramatized, eotionally disturbed pants wetter, selectively mute, and when I did speak it was crazy nonsense of a panic stricken child. For example one incident I remember was that I raised my hand to go to the lavatory, but when the teacher called on me I was so ashamed and embarrassed I told a crazy tale of having a 'butterfly collection' which she then invited me to bring to school for 'show and tell.' Then I wet my pants in my seat. To go to the bathroom, you had to raise your hand, go sit on a bench in the front of the room facing the 40 or so overcrowded post World War 2 baby boom class, and wait for the paddle to come back. I just couldn't do it. After all, children in my age group were punished severely for 'accidents' and bed wetting so we were intensely indoctrinated with the shame of going to the bathroom.

Grade School was a nightmare in a brick factory school followed by our move to Maple Shade, NJ and a pretty, new school on a side street off the main street. One thing I remember from that time in the new school was a boy pulling up a root ; and telling me to smell it because it was 'root beer' - sassafras! It was deliciously fragrant. Another thing I remember was a bad boy named Cody who would grab my chest on the way to the pencil sharpener and stab the cactus on the window sill beside me on his way back to his seat. The best and most wonderful memory however is planting trees on Arbor Day and singing out the open window "Poems are made by fools like me but only God acan make a tree." Those trees we planted still stand in red and gold leafed spendor outside that little school. I had a kind teacher there, Miss Heal. And she did heal with her soft voice and her kind and dignified demeanor. She played piano for us and we sang. Sadly, Miss Heal was murdered many years later in her old age by a mentally ill man who robbed and beat her and threw her body down the cellar steps.

My chronic truancy in Philadelphia became sporadic truancy in middle school, so suffice to say I was a school failure.

Things didn't improve much in High School although I began to recover emotionally and I was able to clear the cobwebs from my eyes and see something of a path forward. I did poorly and was tracked into the business career path, which was actually quite beneficial because it prepared me for work and money to get out of the house and become independent. I became a truant with a good excuse, hepititis which I got from swimming t=in the polluted Pennsauken Creek and contracting the disease from the sewage dumped into the water. I was out of school ost of a year and bedridden on home bound instruction after months in the hospital at Lady of Lourdes.

This segment seems to be devoted to the early years, so I think I will stop here. There comes Dating, My first job and apartments, Marriage, and Europe in my 20's. Home, college, Divorce, Single Motherhood, College again, Career, Retirment, Volunteering and the History World, then the present moment. >p/> Like my historic joural writing friends, I don't imagine anyone will care about this record of an ordinary life, but like them, I feel compelled to write it.

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com