All posts in the ‘ Real People ’ Category

Long after we returned from India, my mother used to brag about the birthday parties we’d had there. She pitied the poor pathetic kids who had grown up in the States, since they didn’t have the resources for a bang-up celebration. Such as street entertainers—dancers, snake charmers, performing monkeys, stilt-walkers, acrobats, puppeteers, jugglers….you name it. Best of all, in my mom’s opinion, was having a merry-go-around set up in the yard, and that was always my favorite, too. …Read More

At our house in New Delhi, during the 1950s and early 1960s, our head bearer (major domo), Pratap Singh, ran the show. Pratap came to us on our first night in Delhi. My travel-weary parents were already on the job and had to go to a formal reception; the hostess told them that she’d send someone over to mind me, Lee, and Jane, then aged eight, six, and two. Come evening, there was a knock on our hotel …Read More

December, 1952: My mom doesn’t look all that encumbered in this picture, but actually she was within a very few weeks of delivering my sister Jane to this world. My parents had arrived in Madras (now Chennai) just the previous month. They’d traveled from the US via London, Frankfort, Istanbul, Beirut, Basra, Karachi, and Delhi, with my sister Lee and me in tow. Lee and I carried Pan Am bags full of coloring books and games, plus a …Read More

The other day, I went to Musterfield Farms in North Sutton, NH. They had their apples and vegetables for sale in a little shed that smelled delicious, just like fall. The prices were listed up on the wall. Anyway, the system is that you help yourself to the produce and then put the money  you think you owe in a cookie can. I got some apples, filling a bag for $2.  The owner saw me and said, “You …Read More

I’m currently rereading Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani’s A Fortune-Teller Told Me, one of my all-time favorite travel books. Terzani (1938-2004) reported on some of the most momentous events of the late twentieth century, including the North Vietnamese takeover of Saigon in 1975. He worked and lived for much of his life in Asia. In 1976, a fortune-teller in Hong Kong told him not to travel by air for the whole of 1993. When the time came, instead of …Read More

My sister Lee and cousins Nancy and Persis put on a wonderful party for friends and family last month to launch Love Potion Number 10. I was too busy signing books to get my own fortune told, but out on the porch, folks were lined up waiting for Madame Lee to read their cards and to consult the 8-Ball. Here’s Lee exchanging vibes with neighbor Marcus. Now, Lee has not admitted to any previous experience in divination. She …Read More

Here are some color photos of India’s Travancore Sisters, snapped long ago by my family’s friend George E Miller II. Thanks very much to his son George E Miller III for digitizing them and sending them on. Left to right: Ragini, Lalitha, and Padmini. Their matching outfits suggest that they had a publicity or social obligation to fulfill, something more than just hanging out on a weekend morning. Lalli looks mischievous and Pappi quite demure. Had they a …Read More

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said: “It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard. Edward Lear, Book of Nonsense (1846) I’ve posted tintypes of bare-faced boys and mustachoied dandies in this space; now for a few of the bearded males I found in the biscuit tin. To paraphrase Stephen Vincent Benét: Like Stonewall Jackson, they are wrapped in …Read More

I found some well turned out ladies in the biscuit tin. The woman above wore a ribbon at the neck, lace collar, fancy tie, and brooch, just as the younger girls did. She’s added a festooned hat, which to my mind gives her an air of confidence. Lovely but wistful Priscilla Parker looks ready for a ride in a carriage. Oh dear, this tintype is pretty rusty, but you can still see the nice plaid, popular at mid-century. …Read More

Here’s something else I found in that box of tintypes and photographs: It was folded up, and inside it was this: Had that lock of hair been undisturbed since 1872? Was the person who saved it in the grip of some obsessive, unrequited love? Far be it from me to toss the program or the lock into the trash! Maybe the New England Conservatory archives would take them.