Keeping Christmas

I am so thankful for my life here in Cambridge, which is an award-winning town with lots going on and people are good to each other.

As you may know, I am a member of the Wednesday Morning Artists, a great group that meets each Wednesday morning at the Creek Deli for coffee and conversation - not to mention planning for lots of good projects under the leadership of Nancy Snyder, who has enough love for everybody! It is a wonderful, supportive group and I know it has made a difference in my life.

For the past several years I have put out a call for members to help me gather gifts for the participants at Pleasant Day Medical Adult Day Care Center. The response has been overwhelming. My living room is full of wrapped gifts to be delivered.

And so my thanks go out to all of those good people who went out of their way to purchase and wrap gifts. Most of the people I asked brought more than one gift, astonishing when one considers that the people who helped with the project do not know the recipients and that they brought more than one gift!

You are all wonderful! Many thanks to those who donated gifts, transportation and good will. You are my heroes! I wish you the happiest of holidays and that you always walk on the sunny side! Love, Terry

As Time Goes By

This summer I took a trip out to Toddville with my friend Ann Foley. Our objective was to talk with some residents of the area to add to a book we are working on called A Dorchester Scrapbook. I took my camera and snapped some shots of various buildings along the way.

Scattered across the marsh country are any number of small country stores with their doors shut and signs fading into soft pastels. One person Ann talked to said there were six of these little mercantiles in a two-mile area. As such, it became evident that people could walk to the neighborhood store and pick up what they needed. A good many of these little places offered credit - the customer could charge their purchases and settle up the tab on payday.

Today, in our era of technology and instant gratification we have to pay for the goods before we can cart them home. If we don't have the cash, no problem. Simply put the charge on your credit card and you are off! Don't even think about the huge interest the card company will add to balances not paid off each month!

So much has changed from the day of the neighborhood store, and having grown up in a similar community in the Appalachains of Pennsylvania, I think of our little grocery store with nostalgia. I would love to see the place again, to check out the big wheel of cheese near the cash register and the candy counter where dreams were spent and fingerprints were left on the glass barrier between the shopper and the sweet.

The old days have a certain charm, but we have to live in today's world of computers, cell phones, and flat screen TVs. I have an idea all the technology that has blossomed during my life is both good and bad.

Sure, we can get things done in the wink of an eye. Just send an email!

I think we miss the community where people greeted passers-by from porches and husbands went down to the store to discuss cars and ball games around a potbelly
stove.

The world is changing - as the world has done and I sometimes wonder if we are not all stuck in the starting position. When it all gets to be too much, I try to get outside and take a walk on the sunny side. I hope you do too! Love, Terry