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Remembering Abortion Before Roe v Wade
Do we really want our daughters to return to a time when access to safe and effective birth control was difficult, those good old days when abortion was risky and unavailable? Those are the facts of...
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Mr. Peanut’s Nutty History of the U.S. Presidents
Mr. Peanuts Presents A Historical and Educational Paint Book Presidents of the United States of America. 1950’s It may sound nutty, but everything I first learned about our presidents, I acquired from...
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Was the Grand Old Party Once Really Grand?
Fact or Fiction It may sound like a fairy tale but once upon a time the GOP really were…well, pretty Grand! Today when the phrase “moderate Republican” is fast becoming an oxymoron, it seems like...
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Atomic Passion – The Utterly Unauthorized Story of My Conception
It was spring 1954. While the Cold War was frozen solid, thanks to a temporary thaw in my parents own chilly clashes, I would be conceived on a sweltering hot night that June. I would be conceived...
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Hiroshima Hits Home – A Blast From the Past
In that great American tradition of forgive and forget, in May of 1955, only 10 years after we dropped the Atom Bomb on Japan, television audiences watching the popular TV program “This is Your Life”...
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Robert Kennedy Through the Eyes of a Teenage Girl
The ardent passion of my fledging politics in the upheaval of that epoch year 1968. (L) Politics in the suburbs- the author and her friend holding a home made poster for Robert Kennedy for President R)...
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Hot Dogs Cold War
A hot dog can make you lose control Hot dogs, that very symbol of culinary democracy took on a special meaning during the cold war, especially in the summer of 1961. The fate of Nathans Hot Dogs hung...
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Miss Rheingold Contest a N.Y. Summer Staple
When it came to elections in N.Y. nothing beat the hotly debated contest for the title of Miss Rheingold. Pat Quinlan Miss Rheingold 1948 Once upon a time, the selection of the annual “Miss...
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JFK and the Summer of High Hopes
JFK in the swim. Photo by Bill Beebe/Los Angeles Times Archives?UCLA A Favorite From the Vault The sizzling summer of 1960 was dominated by the equally hot Presidential race between John F. Kennedy and...
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Defrosting the Cold War
“Defrosting the Cold War” collage by Sally Edelstein Is the Cold War coming out of the deep freeze? Having caught a Cold War chill I never could quite shake, the current frosty relations between...
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Maternity in the Age of Mad Men
Who’s Afraid of the Stork? asks this 1951 vintage ad for Lederle a Division of American Cyanamid Company. “The stork is now as tame as a household pet,” it boasts, explaining how safe childbirth has...
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A Passover Tradition
From the Holiday Archive: Like Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix produced no tears. That dehydrated marvel of mid-century cookery was a staple in my Mothers repertoire. Mom...
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Memorial Day- Remembering My Greatest Generation Dad
The Greatest Generation loses one more…. Memorial day this year takes on a different significance than other years for me. This year as the number of WWII veterans continue to dwindle, another former...
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Gay Bachelor and the Bride
In honor of LGBT Pride Month, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite stories from the Vault: Next to the waiter passing the champagne, my confirmed bachelor Great Uncle Harry was the most sought after...
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The Passover Plot – Operation: Matzo Ball
It was a post war Passover plot worthy of the Russians; a cold war caper to rival anything Julius and Ethel Rosenberg cooked up. A top-secret stolen – during the Jewish holiday of Passover...
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Memories Coming Out of Mothballs
For some, the sweet perfume of lilacs drifting through open screened windows evoke spring. For me springtime can be conjured up with the toxic smell of mothballs. These past many months as I have been...
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A Mid Century Send Off
My mid-century home is fading fast. Right now strangers and bottom feeders are traipsing thru my parent’s suburban house picking over the remains of a family’s long life hoping to score a deal at a...
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Mothers Never Leave Us Even When They Are Gone
Fifteen years ago in a darkened hospital room, I held my mother’s frail hand and gently whispered in her ear how she was the love of my life, that I was going to tell her story, that I would write her...
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Does Print Matter? It Does to Me
As an old-school lover of newspapers, I’m particularly thrilled to have a double-page spread with a bonus Brownie-era photo published in Sunday’s New York Daily News. That a black and white snapshot...
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