30/ My Cousin Barbara

Born one month apart to sisters, she and I call each other "Sis." Widows now, we live alone in different states. She paints in oils, and decorates rooms and objects. She can make anything beautiful. We haven't seen one another in decades, but every day we share the minutiae of our similar lives and send updates on our latest projects. Like making paper dolls for the grandchildren. Or the 30+ flowerpots each of us planted one summer.

Barbara's painting of some of my pots

and my hollyhocks

29/ Xtine

Her daughter-in-law once asked how I became friends with Xtine, and I said, "I stalked her." She's older than I, infinitely better educated, stylish, and well-read in the extreme. Her compassion knows no bounds. She's traveled everywhere, knows everyone, and has more energy than I think I've ever possessed. But when we met at a poetry reading I knew we had common ground and the same sense of humor—all we needed to establish a best-friendship.

28/ Joan Moshimer

As a child, I'd watched Aunt Peggy hook rugs, but didn't pay attention to the process. So when I inherited her equipment, I was clueless. Enter The Complete Book of  Rug Hooking and the Rug Hooking News & Views newsletter, both written by Joan Moshimer in Maine. Once a war bride from England, Joan taught me most of what I know about this very American craft. I wish I'd been able to meet her.

Today I hook my own designs, but when I first started I used patterns designed by Joan—like these:

27/ Mr. R.

Somehow C. managed to rule the Arts Council. Nasty and mean-spirited, she wasn't particularly accomplished—just strident. My entry in the Arts Council logo contest didn't win, but the judges praised my design of ballerina legs and urged me to send it elsewhere. But C. refused to give it back. During refreshments following the judging, I felt something on my leg. It was my entry, handed to me under the table by Mr. R., a judge.

26/ The Hamfest Guys

"Hamfest" sounds like a gluttonous pork event, but it's a flea-market style gathering of ham radio operators. My son and I attend several every year. The hams (almost all male) range from MIT professor types to those whose radio conversations might be their only regular contact with the outside world. Mostly they're friendly and fun to talk to. I'm glad my license makes me one of them, call-sign hat and all.

25/ My Teenage Friends

I was blessed with a wonderful group of friends to go through my teens with. We all smoked, and many drank, but there was still an innocence compared to today. We had our own vocabulary. "Down front" was the storefront sidewalk where we mostly hung out. We had parties, music, banter, nicknames, and a solid sense of community. I loved the boys who were my boyfriends, and I loved the ones who weren't even more.

24/ Sister Cecilia de Sales

I was a homesick motherless Protestant child entering 5th grade at a Catholic convent boarding school. She was a calm, wise nun with a gentle sense of humor. "That's a nice name," she said upon hearing the name Armstrong, and so we knew it had been hers. She also said, "Women have a suffer to be beautiful, and that's why I never was." But we knew better, at least about the "I never was" part.

23/ The Theater People

When my kids were little we performed in musical theater together. In one play about King Cole, the girls, ages 7 and 4, had lines and sang in the chorus, and I played Queen Lee. A George M. Cohan show, 45 Minutes From Broadway, was another favorite ("Grand Old Flag!"). And then there was the musical melodrama where I (age 38), as Nellie Quackenbush, sang to my (19-year-old) suitor, Noble Hart, about my virginity.

Suzanne, age 7, as Polly

Me as Queen Lee, 1980

22/ Don Doyle

Don was the publisher of the newspaper where I once worked, and I showed up to speak at his retirement roast. In the middle of my speech I pretended to take a phone call from someone who'd had an affair with him. Don had a great sense of humor! He's gone now, but years later I still grin at the memory of that night. I had the audience in the palm of my hand. Thanks, Don.

I must add that the "someone" and the affair were my inventions. I think one of our fellow writers might remember when I was putting this speech together. Lots of fun!

21/ The Hospice Nurse

When my second mother was dying in Florida, all the hospice nurses were wonderful until "Lorraine" showed up. Her real estate license clearly had more meaning to her than her R.N. certification. Abandoning her patient, she walked through the rooms, her strident voice making suggestions for a quick sale and pushing her pitch to get the listing. When she read her newspaper by spreading it atop my comatose mother, that was the last straw.

20/ The Beach People

We were city dwellers, but in NYC you don't have to go far to find saltwater. My family loved the beach. We spent most of our summers swimming, fishing, crabbing, and clamming at Sag Harbor—in those days neither trendy nor crowded—and when I was a teenager my friends and I hitchhiked to Rockaway Beach. But way before that, my dad was photographing friends and family on the sand at the water's edge.

The man is a close family friend, one of my dad's co-workers. He and his family often vacationed with us. I don't recognize the women, but aren't their beach clothes interesting? And one doesn't often see knitting in the sand.

I'm in the center, eating (of course) from a jar of food served to me by my mom. Her sister Charlotte is on the left, and Charlotte's husband, Eddie, is on the right. My dad is holding their daughter, Terry. Both pics from the 1940's.

19/ The Office People

My dad photographed people. Friends and family today are grateful to have the pictures he took from the 1920's through the 1960's. He owned high-end cameras during times when most people had either an inferior camera or (more likely) none at all, and his homemade darkroom prints and negatives survive. I'm fascinated with his office pics from the 1940's and 50's. The calculators . . . the typewriters . . . the myriad rubber stamps . . . the clothes . . . the liquor . . . the card games . . . the parties!

18/ The Sag Harbor Boys

I loved their collegiate good looks, their fast boats, their humor, their manners. On the last day of my 17th summer they docked their boats at Jim's house, one bringing a new record for us all to hear. We sat silently in the living room's late-summer sun and listened to The Kingston Trio's first album—our introduction to folk music. When I seek an example of the innocence of those times, I find that day.

Pat (seated) and me, both 16, with Jim in 1959. The unforgettable Sag Harbor summers . . . 

17/ Jazz Musicians I Have Photographed

I'm neither a pro photographer nor an amateur who specializes in photographing musicians. But while going through images recently I realized I've taken a great many pictures of jazz musicians, and several of these appear on CD cases. With this realization, I came dangerously close to being impressed with myself. Not many others would be impressed, though. Unless you're a serious jazz fan, especially living in eastern Pennsylvania, you probably never heard of these people.

Ron Stabinsky

Tony Marino

16/ Bev, Jet, and Lindsay

Bev, a teacher of drama and languages; Jet, an RN and PT, once an exchange student from Holland; Lindsay, a well-published author and illustrator of children's literature. At a fundraiser for the local Montessori school, we once performed a skit I wrote, set in a laundromat. Holding laundry baskets on our hips, we sang "Am I Blue?" And when we finished, we threw men's tighty whities into the audience. My fun friends. My dear friends.

15/ Barbara Hoffman

She was a legend in my school, a writing teacher spoken of so highly by so many that I envisioned her tall and elegant, dark hair in a long bob, given to wearing swirling capes and scarves. Reality was a shock: tiny, elf-like, given to wearing short tunics and striped leggings. Invited to audit several of her poetry workshops, I had so much fun. No one ever expected her to die days before retirement.

The many posts on her Legacy page tell about her uniqueness. Like this: "One of the most memorable moments was when she decided we needed to mourn the loss of the hard copy card catalog in the library as it was being transitioned over to computer only. The entire class marched into the library, encircled the card catalog and held a moment of silence . . ."

14/ Fred Waring

My husband did some consulting for a while, in between working for Exxon and manufacturing acetaminophen (this was around 1970, pre-tofu), and he had several meetings with Fred Waring. Fred was famous but friendly, and I came along—with our dog, Poppy. Vivid memories: the ingenious thread-storage unit Fred designed for his wife, a skilled seamstress; and me in the backseat of Fred's newest maroon Lincoln, keeping Poppy's head vertical so she wouldn't throw up.

13/ The Cookbook Author

Elizabeth Schneider was one of a number of authors (and occasional other prominent people) I wrote to when my kids were growing up. When Rodale Press asked her to create tofu recipes for a new cookbook, the pay was low for her. She knew we had the tofu business, so she graciously offered the opportunity to me. As a result, 20 of my recipes are in Tofu, Tempeh, and Other Soy Delights (still available on eBay).

12/ My Son

Inspired by Dona's posts, I looked back 12 years at my 40-words-a-day blog and found what I'd written about my son, then 27 years old: "The sunniest child, the funniest teen, the smartest, hardest-working, most resourceful adult. Advanced ham radio operator (antennas and towers!), avid scientist by inheritance, born entrepreneur. Handsome face of the brother I never had. Always there when I need him. Always." Nothing to change except to add "loving, attentive dad."

11/ Another Susie's Son

Susie may have been this property's first flower gardener. When we moved here I found among the weeds a couple of leaves that looked like a peony. I dug it up and planted it in the perennial bed I'd started. The following year it produced loads of huge white blooms with a red flash inside. I invited her son Bob, then in his 80's, to see it. His tears blessed the flowers of his childhood.

Peony "Festiva Maxima"

10/ Another Susie

Born in 1879, Susie Keill lived in this house and died 33 years before I came here. I felt a connection to her because of her name and because we were both flower gardeners. I was told she was deaf, killed at age 62 by a train while walking on the railroad tracks. When I read her death certificate online I was sad to learn she lingered 13 days with multiple fractures.

This is one of Susie Keill's irises. 

9/ Isidore Luckstone

Great-uncle Isidore was another of the musical Luckstones. he was well known as a composer and pianist, especially as an accompanist—an art requiring a high level of intuitive communication between pianist and singer. He performed at the Metropolitan Opera, and a recording made in 1905 can still be heard online. I've bought sheet music of his compositions on eBay. Isidore disliked his name, and had the family call him Wuzzy. As opposed to Izzy.

Isidore is pictured here with his French wife, Elise, at the bottom, and a close friend, the soprano Marguerite Starrell, just above her on the right. I wish I could ID the other people. Isidore and Elise were greatly beloved by their descendants.

8/ The Praying Physician

I'd heard my new doctor liked to pray over his patients, so I wasn't surprised when he asked if he might. He covered my hand with his and mumbled a rapid-fire prayer. Listening hard, I caught mention of all the organs. When he finished, he grasped my upper arm. Thinking this must be a post-prayer gesture of solidarity, I patted his hand. Belatedly, I realized he was attempting to help me off the examining table.

7/ Soulless

She is the most openly unpleasant person I've ever met. A new writing group folded after its first meeting because she joined. We were unprepared for someone so completely cold—prudish, negative and critical in the extreme. At a poetry workshop years ago, I flatly refused to read my poem aloud in her presence. There was silence, and then she said, "Well! I guess I should leave." After that, more silence. Until she did.

6/ The Woman in the Asian Market

The owner of the little Asian grocery sets aside tofu for me because I don't want to remove it from the communal bucket of water with my hand. She's always incredulous that someone who looks like me eats tempeh. "You like tempeh??" she asks every single time. Then, "How you cook it?" I learned to tell her I season it with garlic powder—not because I do, but because it makes her happy.

5/ A Neighbor-in-Law

Pregnant, she grew a tumor, almost baby sized, along with the baby. The baby was born healthy, the mother transferred to a top cancer hospital. She left the hospital after receiving a spiritual message that she would die if she stayed. I didn't know her well, but I was one of many people who saved our peach pits for the homemade remedy prescribed by her Christian healer. That was decades ago, and she thrives still.

4/ Debbie

Jill and Joe had always taken care of the horses. I was alone. Desperate and exhausted, I rested my forehead on the horse fence and felt Jill's love for them fill me. Soon after, I met Debbie, who agreed to come and care for them twice a day. She did that and more. A cancer survivor, she said I'd be surprised by who is there for me, and who is not. She was so right.

3/ The Horse Thief

In July 2001, less than two months after my daughter Gillian died, my husband was in the ICU and a self-appointed* animal control officer posted an official-looking paper on my barn stating that because of neglect our 12 horses would be seized. I explained my situation and gave her references, but she held firm. Eventually it took only one f-bomb to make her disappear as though in a puff of smoke, never to return.

* I didn't know until after it was all over that she had tried similar stuff before but judges wouldn't work with her.
In the photo, Gillian is seated on Regina with Regina's baby, Xubi (Exuberance)—two of our "neglected" horses.

2/ My Trivia Team

I'm the captain of a team that competes in a trivia contest every three months at the library. We're quite noisy with our banter and laughter, but we also win most of the time. Certainly our age range helps (88 down to about 30), as do their talents and backgrounds: an editor, an artist, a Buddhist nurseryman, a health-food store owner/homeopath, and a British Ph.D. (in education)—all as funny as they are smart.

This photo doesn't quite match my description because it was taken about a year ago. So if you try to figure out which person is which, you'll be wrong with at least one of them. You could, of course, just guess on whose shoulders I have my (headless) hands.

1/ Alice Campbell, my Grandmother

She had us call her "Lucky" because she was too young to be a grandmother. She ran away at 16 to go on the stage, and never lost her singing voice. She created an adventure in every decade of her life, taking up figure skating in her forties and French (wildly successfully!) in her sixties. Genetically, we are very much alike, but I hope that doesn't include the Alzheimer's that claimed her. I adored her.

(She's pictured with her handsome baritone, Harry Luckstone, my grandfather.)