Mary Louise Eklund

Author: Mary Louise Eklund

  • Tuesday Thoughts – Rosemary, The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

    rosemary-by-kate-clifford-larson
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    What I know of the Kennedys is the political aspects of the family. Which in their case is a good part about the family. However, I never knew much about Rosemary. I was vaguely aware there was a sister to JFK that was institutionalized. Other than that I knew nothing. Then I was reading an article about this book. Interesting, but what got me considering it was that Rosemary spent most of her life in seclusion in Wisconsin not far from where I worked there. What had me buy it was learning that her father had put her there and told the rest of the family she was dead. It was only after he was incapacitated by a stroke that the other children learned their sister was still alive. So how did a prominent family come to lose and hide one of their own members? A sister of a President? The tale is a sad one.

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  • Monday Marginalia – A Walk In Mimosa Cemetery

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    I love history and Mike enjoys it.  One of the ways we’ve come to know an area we visit or live is by getting to know the local history.  A way to do this is by cemetery walks with good history guides.  We’ve enjoyed them in Kenosha, Burlington, Savannah, Charleston, and now here in Lawrenceburg.  On October 22nd,  after clipping an article from the local (twice weekly) paper, we attended on here sponsered by the library.  It was excellent right there with the best.  We met 10 former citizens of Lawrenceburg some great, some notable, some infamous.

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  • Freaky Friday – The Elizabethan Odd Couple

    John Dee
    Edward Kelley in one of his hats with his hair covering his ears.

    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    History is full of strange partnerships.  Some change the world, others just perplex it.  This is the story of the latter.   The tale of Dee and Kelley is one of an educated man and a con man.  How the two became involved and what it did for each is something told again and again.  It has been fuel for many fictional works and even showed up subtly in the X-Men movies on Kurt’s skin. Yet some wonder did this odd couple stumble upon something or did Kelley run the longest most successful con of his career on Dee?

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  • Throwback Thursday – Our family has always had furry members

    1990-mike-belle-popcorn

    We all missed Mike when he’d ship out for months without communication. When he got home none of us could get enough of him. Popcorn, the cat, and Belle, the dog, would follow him everywhere. They’d wait outside the bathroom just in case he was trying to make a getaway. Here they are happily snuggling just after he returned in 1990. Nothing better than a nap with dad after a long separation.

  • Wednesday Words – When English Falls Short

    melancholy-by-aleph78
    Melancholy by Aleph78 on Flickr. He has graciously licensed its use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

    All languages have their shortcomings. Sometimes words in our native tongue fail us. For me that seems to happen in English when it comes to emotions. There are feelings we all have but are hard to describe. Today I turn to German for a feeling I once described as melancholia but knew that didn’t quite capture the nuisances of the feeling now I have a word that does and I shall, in great English tradition, borrow it from German. It’s…

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – The Intern

    intern
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    I’m very picky about comedies but I do like a ‘fish out of water’ comedy. You know the type someone is in a situation they are unfamiliar with but after some funny errors they make friends get into the groove then by their adapting they change the new place for the better and everyone wins. Yay. That is that I thought The Intern was going to be.

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  • Monday Marginalia – Leoma, Tennessee

    leoma-post-office
    Leoma Post Office

    So in June we closed on our house here in Tennessee and moved in. Then I promptly broke my foot, rather Molly did. Then as I was recovering Mom didn’t want to be topped so she broke her leg. Now, that brings us to September. I’m finally getting out and getting shots of our new community to do a post.

    That’s our post office for our little unincorporated community. It doesn’t have drive thorugh drop-off boxes if you want something fancy like that you’ll have to drive to Loretto, TN to the south or Lawrenceburg, TN to the north. We don’t have a grocery store. The only gas station is a mile off on Rabbit Trail Road. Our population is a whopping 5,068. Below are the highlights of town (honestly almost all of town.)

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  • Freaky Friday – Lake City Quiet Pills

    bullets-judge-pera-flickr-22jul16
    Bullets by Judge Pera on Flickr. He licensed use under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

    Okay Freaky Friday folks buckle your seat belts we are really going down a few rabbit holes on the internet. You know when the primary source for the tale is Reddit that it’s going to get strange. For those who don’t know what Reddit is… well it’s a social internet site where people discuss news, stories, topic, and things they find. I’m not a member but am a reader on occasion. It was there that this story started. From there it goes into porn sites that aren’t just porn sites, number stations on the internet, possible mercenaries, one hell of a wake party, possible assassination involvement, Mossad involvement,  fake names, fake passports, Interpol, half hearted international man/woman hunt, a grouchy old man that befriends vets,… what have I left out…  oh an inheritance and a raggedy old cat. Intrigued? I’ll try to explain.

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  • Thursday Throwback – We picked him from the patch

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    Can you spot Aaron among Granpa Mac’s pumpkins?  LOL!  This was 1994 on the McAllister’s Michigan farm.  Aaron’s orange jacket (his ‘go Vols clothes’ as he called them) just made it too irresistible not to put him there among the pumpkins.  I think we picked the best one that year don’t you?

  • Wednesday Words – When Arguments Don’t Matter

    argument-by-andre-vandal-flickr-18sep2016
    Argument by Andre Vandal on Flickr. He has graciously shared his image via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

    Long ago I quit watching the news on TV. There were three things that drove me away.

    1) Blatant Political Slant – I don’t care which way it was. None were reporting the news they were spinning it.

    2) News-tainment – Who won the previous night’s Dancing With The Stars isn’t a lead news story. Taylor Swift’s latest break up isn’t either. (Let’s face it the girl needs break-ups to write songs and she’s got a whole album to fill so there’s many of these)

    But I never had a word the third thing. Now I do it was the… (more…)