Another story, posted here, by my sister Joanne West Cornish: When I was 21, I finally became a teacher. I was assigned a school and anxiously awaited getting to my “future,” a future I had envisioned since I was a girl. The year was 1964,…

Breakfasts for kids in the 1950s meant cardboard cereal boxes on the table, full of cereals that were well advertised on our new 9″ screen television set. The Lone Ranger was sponsored by General Mills and Cheerios. Captain Kangaroo featured ads for Wheaties, the “breakfast…

In 1957 my family took the annual car trip, this time to California by way of the Grand Canyon and the Giant Redwood Forest. “Getting there” was the most miserable part of our trips, but oddly the part I remember most warmly. At 14, the…

(This story was written by my sister, Joanne) March 28, 1999, my “brother” Steve died. His half-brother René Lawrence, who grew up a self-described fatherless bastard and became a failed rock musician, called to tell me. Steven Adam West, Steve, had himself grown up fatherless,…

As my 75th birthday present, my sister-in-law gifted me airfare to join her in New York City. Her instructions, sent by email, were to take an Uber to the downtown hotel. I had heard often of Uber but had never used it. When I emerged…

     For many, so many years the women of the Tribe of Man had one purpose. It was to marry and produce offspring for their husbands. The wives had no riches of their own as they gave their youth and riches to their husbands. So…

She watched from the window, the view changing, just as she stayed unchanged. In the past, her clothing changed often but now she wore the same red dress day after day, the shoulders becoming sun-bleached, the hem fragile. Beside her stood her friend, a toy…

My neighbor Elaine told me a story. She and husband Steve lived in a big house across the street built by his grandparents. The large basement held a walk-in, steel-door safe. The safe’s door had been rusted closed for years, holding mostly memories. One night…

In a small town, gossip is an enthusiastic social activity. Topics surround, naturally enough, religious no-no’s. The forbidden. Whispers about who is having an affair, who is an alcoholic, who has a violent marriage, who has come into money and so many more off-color subjects,…

Honesty can be overrated. In the 1950s, our parents sent their daughters to a “fancy” girls camp in Kerrville, Texas, where campers swam in the Guadalupe River, sang songs around a campfire, lounged under the trees in white Adirondack chairs, and had sessions that lasted…