True Stories Well Told

By Faith Ellestad

Let me explain.  In 1975, we bought a house.  It wasn’t a goal, but rather a necessity as our current landlord suddenly decided to sell the house we were renting.  Having promised he would give us plenty of time if he ever decided to sell, we now had less than 30 days (plus a dog and a baby) to find a new place. Through a combination of diligence and sheer panic, we discovered a place that the owner, desperate to get rid of, would agree to sell via land contract if we could come up with a thousand dollars. Bless my father-in-law, who offered to “loan” us the down payment, and we moved into a very old, never updated, one-bathroom house.  No garage, old iron sink, radiators fueled by an ancient worrisomely clanky boiler, but it had four walls, heat and running water, not to mention extra wildlife in the form of mice. It suited our needs, and our finances. 

A few years into our land contract, the owner decided to sell.  Our options were (A) purchase or (B) move.  To our great good fortune, this happened at a time when Government programs were still designed to help people with very limited finances actually survive and even progress.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development was our savior. Mr. Pitterle, a slender, soft spoken HUD employee who had doubtless dealt with hundreds of families in our situation, guided us through the process of securing a low-income mortgage at an astonishing 2% interest rate that included the remodeling required to bring the house up to code (plus a few modest tweaks we envisioned).

We were to get a couple of estimates for the required work, and HUD would select the lowest bidder. This is when we learned the unassailable truth of the dictum “Ya get what ya pay for.”  Our crack team of builders, Dan K and associates, arrived to begin work.  Dan was a sizeable, jolly good fellow wearing a pair of husky XL jeans that were unfortunately a bit too relaxed, often revealing a tad more of Dan than we might have hoped.  Dan came accessorized with two wiry apprentices seemingly in their early twenties. 

Work began mid-summer with the mis-ordering of new windows for the 3-season porch, which needed to be exchanged for the correct size. Apparently, no work on our renovation could proceed until this error was rectified, so progress ground to a dismaying halt.  Eventually, Fall arrived along with the windows, and work began more or less in earnest.

Next on the agenda was the kitchen.  Improvements included removing the old iron sink and replacing it with a new stainless one, a garbage disposal, adding counters and cupboards of which we had none (we were using a table, a bookcase and one open shelf above the stove), and a small dishwasher.  Plumbing would be upgraded and new linoleum flooring would replace the horrible stained green indoor-outdoor carpet currently enhancing the kitchen. I wlll admit some of the staining was exacerbated by our digestively sensitive dog and my son carrying the open honey bear container upside down across the entire kitchen.  That stuff never came out.   

Of course, there was a wait for the appliances and cupboards, but the plumbing continued. One day, Dan and his giant pants arrived with a cane.  He limped up the stairs, sat on the landing, and with a flourish, pulled up his pants (the wrong end, I regret to say) to exhibit his cast. 

“Welp”, he said, using what I believe was his favorite word ever, “Broke my ankle. Guess I’ll just have to supervise for a while.”  And that’s what he did.  He was crazy about our little boys and spent an inordinate amount of time bouncing our youngest up and down on his good leg,

“Bumpa Bumpa Bumpa Boom!” as he supervised “the team”.

And the team needed supervising. Nights were hard on the team.  They often arrived late, looking kind of rough around the edges. Occasionally, one or the other would ask me if I had some Advil lying around. There would be a damn headache or nasty bruise that required some ministration.  I was generous with the Advil, anything to get the work done, which had slowed to a snail’s pace without Dan’s assistance.  “Bumpa Bumpa Bumpa Boom” did not appear to have a motivating effect on “the team”, who tended to carry one tool at a time in their handy tool belts, usually a claw-foot hammer, rarely a tape measure, never any aspirin.  This required endless trips to the truck and much door slamming to the distress of my husband, who worked nights and desperately needed sleep.

Eventually, oh, happy day, the flooring arrived!  An actual flooring team installed it, and we were thrilled. It was beautiful. Real noticeable progress had been made. And the cupboards were due to arrive any day. 

One morning, about two days after the new flooring had been installed, the team arrived rather late, looking unusually disheveled even for them as beer fumes preceded them into the back hall where they sat on the landing leading to the kitchen, smoking. Of course, they weren’t supposed to smoke in the house, but they often forgot, smoking apparently being a vital part of treating a hangover.

My husband, who had arrived home from his night shift and was eating breakfast, overheard their animated conversation.

“Geez,” one of them said in a kind of awed tone, “I didn’t think such a little guy could hit that hard.”  As they were sitting there discussing the velocity of the little guy’s fists, one of them accidentally burnt a hole in the brand-new linoleum.

They must have seen my horrified expression because the culprit hastened to reassure me. ”Don’t worry about that. We’ll fix it right up for ya.”

He found a scrap of leftover vinyl, hurried out to the truck for a knife and some super glue, lacking those items in his tool holster, and proceeded to plug the burn hole with a tiny bit of jaggedy super-glued linoleum.

“Good as new,” he lied. We were irate and insisted they pay the flooring team to come back and make a proper repair.  They didn’t argue. The new patch was professionally installed.

November blew in and with it, the bathroom remodel.  Dan’s plan was to replace the old clawfoot tub with a tub/shower, put in a wash bowl/vanity combo, and new flooring.  Thanksgiving was fast approaching and everyone was eager to get the bathroom completed.  Unfortunately, my little one developed pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized, so work was halted for a few days. When we got home, the team was in a great hurry to finish up. 

“We’ll pull the tub first. Soon as its outta there, we can put in the flooring.” 

This seemed like a reasonable plan until they discovered the tub wouldn’t fit through the door.

“Welp, I think if we remove the door and pull the toilet, it might fit through”.

Welp, it didn’t.  Now we had a bathroom with no toilet, no door, and a tub that was stuck in the doorway.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out on Monday when we get back from hunting,” Dan assured us.

“Wait a minute.  It’s Wednesday. You’re leaving us with no bathroom for four days?  That’s not happening! You’ve gotta fix this before you leave.”

They weren’t happy to be staying late, but reluctantly agreed to hook the toilet back up after we adamantly rejected their suggestion of flushing with pitchers of water. Then they fled. We spent several days climbing over the tub to use the doorless bathroom, but, you know, count your blessings, right?

When the Team returned post-hunting hiatus, Dan’s ankle had healed, so work resumed at a much more efficient pace. Finally, it was done. We passed the HUD inspection (no one brought up the possibly asbestos-covered pipes in the basement). Now we could begin living in our much improved, happier, and more valuable house thanks to Mr. Pitterle and HUD. 

Welp, I guess the good ol’ days really were the good ol’ days.  I hope they return and soon.

A footnote: after the team left, I was admiring a rebuilt closet, when an unsecured wooden door header fell and grazed my temple.  I had no toolbelt, but I did have tools, and rather than call the team back, I just nailed it up myself.   

© 2026 Faith Ellestad

Faith has been writing to amuse her family since she was old enough to print letters to her grandparents.  Now retired, she has taken the opportunity to sort through family memorabilia, discovering a wellspring of tales begging to be told, which she hopes to expand upon in written form (where appropriate, of course!).   She and her husband live in Madison, Wisconsin. They are the parents of two great sons and a loving daughter-in-law, and recently expanded their family to include Thistle and Bramble, two irrepressible young felines.

By Valerie Gibbons

The nursing assistant stopped first at my room on her morning rounds. The RN told her my call light had been on the longest.

I was in a rehab facility to learn to walk again. Lying beneath a hospital sheet and blanket, my body was like gnarled driftwood – thin, twisted, blanched – now floating on a squishy brown bog. The room smelled acrid. I don’t know how long I’d been rotting in place. I was too weak to get to the toilet when it was still dark.

She was ebony wood – strong, stable, and dark. Dressed in blue scrubs and white rubber-soled shoes, she was 4 feet 8 inches of embodied Black resilience. Her round mahogany eyes spoke sincerity before they slowly narrowed to slits. Her thick lips pursed in disapproval as she studied me.

Suddenly, she pivoted, threw back her head, and hurled anger at the open door. “I wouldn’t treat my worst enemy this way!” she hollered at no one and everyone. Her rebuke went unanswered.

Having avenged the twin evils of indifference and neglect, she calmly turned back to me. “Come on baby,” she said, “I’ll clean you up.”

© 2026 Valerie Gibbons

Valerie is a leukemia survivor who writes about her cancer journey and that of others, striving to compose essays that capture the experiences and emotions of confronting “the emperor of all maladies.” She continues work on her memoir, My Closet Needs an Exorcism.

By Mona Jean Harley

Overhearing the word “airplane” several times in the crowd clued me in to the reason why the conference participants were not moving into the arena to listen to the morning keynote address. The speaker’s plane had obviously been delayed! Happens all the time, especially at a big airport like San Diego International. I continued to mill about the crowd of complete strangers, perhaps I picked up a few more slices of seasonal fruit or a small gummy danish while I was waiting. Hmmm, so the speaker’s plane was delayed, yet there has been no announcement about the apparent schedule change. And a certain hushed tone flowed among all of the conversations taking place around me amidst the palm trees, a bit like being in an open-air funeral home. I did more milling, overheard more suppressed conversations, still no movement toward the gathering area, still no announcement regarding the delay. I finally decided to warily approach a small group of hushed talkers. I waited for an opening and then posed the question, “Did something happen?”

It was September 11, 2001. I was in San Diego for a work conference, along with my husband, 5-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son. We had flown out to San Diego a few days earlier, and rented a car, even though we would barely need the car while at the conference. The rental car was its own story. Hertz initially upgraded us for free, and we loaded up the car with our suitcases and car seat, buckled in the kids and ourselves…but then the car wouldn’t start. Ugh. We found an employee, described the problem, and we were shown to another rental car. Before unloading the disabled car and loading up the next car, my husband wisely decided to first try to start the car. It started, which was a good sign, but when he attempted to adjust the seat that was in an awkward and partially reclined position, the seat didn’t budge; it was broken. We debated keeping the car anyway, since we wouldn’t be driving far, and it was late, and the kids were about falling asleep. But ultimately we decided that if we were paying for a car to drive, we wanted the seat to be properly adjustable. So they brought us a much upgraded Lincoln LS, leather interior, sunroof, and a gizmo we had never heard of before, a “GPS.” The car started, we loaded it up with suitcases, a car seat, and 2 sleepy kids, and we were off to the hotel.

The conference began the next day, at a beautiful outdoor venue at the hotel. I enjoyed the weather, the salty air, palm trees, fragrant flowers, and some workshops. Later in the afternoon, we went to the beach, although a little cool for swimming, it was beautiful to walk along the beach, wade in the water, and play in the sand. After my sessions the following day, we ventured into La Jolla, with an even more beautiful beach with rocks and coves. Our daughter has always loved the water, and at 5, it was hard to keep her out of the ocean. She 1st waded in the water, next she was up to her knees, and before we knew it, her whole outfit was wet, and she was delighted! We later bought a large-size child’s t-shirt from a street vendor that she could wear as a dress, which doubled as a souvenir. Tomorrow was September 11, the last day of my conference. We would be flying home to Madison, Wisconsin, the day after the conference ended.

After asking my innocent question to the hushed group of fellow conference attenders, they looked at me questionably and replied, “Didn’t you hear?” Well, obviously I had not. They went on to tell me about the two planes that had crashed into the Twin Towers. Stunned, and feeling very far from home, I went back to our hotel room. Fortunately, our daughter was on the balcony playing with Barbies, so my husband and I could turn on the television and learn more about what was going on, and then quickly flip it off anytime she wandered back into the hotel room. That afternoon, we spent time at the local beach, so the kids could play in the sand as my husband and I tried to figure out what in the world to do.

He had suggested we just drive the rental car home, but that seemed very daunting–we could not have been any farther from home in the continental United States! On the news, we learned that airports would open later that evening, so we held tight. Of course, airports did not open that night, or the next morning as promised, or the following evening. So we decided driving home would, in fact, be the best option. Even if we somehow stumbled upon airline tickets home, we certainly did not want to return our precious rental car and end up stuck in the airport terminal with 2 kids and tickets that actually wouldn’t get us home due to the massive backlog of stranded travelers! So we drove to a K-Mart and bought a booster seat for our daughter, a couple of toys, and an atlas map, since we weren’t quite sure how the GPS gizmo worked. However, early into our 2300-mile journey, we easily learned how to navigate the GPS! We took off toward Phoenix and spent our first night with dear college friends. It felt very grounding to be with people we knew and loved, and the kids liked playing with friends. We enjoyed a little respite from the intensity of the previous few days. A long drive the next day took us to a hotel in Oklahoma, 6 hours from Wichita. We heard from the hotel clerk that on the night of the 11th, stranded travelers were routed to that hotel, which was the closest hotel to Wichita that had vacancies. Rest areas were quiet along the interstates, even days after the 11th, there continued to be hushed tones among the few people we did encounter. Strangers were sharing moving vans to get to their destinations across the US. And all we noticed in the quiet skies were birds. Only once did our daughter ask us why we weren’t flying home. “All the airports are closed.” I replied, which was a completely satisfactory response for her. Our last night was spent with a different set of beloved friends in Kansas, allowing us to laugh, relish friendship, and again, the kids could play. When we arrived home the following night, we had beaten the air travelers, and we had driven our upgraded rental car, with the fully functioning adjustable seat, a few more miles than we had initially planned!

The afternoon before we left for San Diego, my husband and I were talking in the dining room of our home, when we heard a strange buzzing noise. It wasn’t the sound of the smoke alarm or the carbon monoxide detector. We combed the main floor and then the basement, where the culprit was discovered: one of the kids’ board books about airplanes. The book had been quietly resting on a bookshelf for at least six months, yet the push-button airplane take-off noise was now mysteriously sounding, incessantly, without anything pressing against it! The only way my husband could get the noise to stop was to dismantle the button. He wondered if this was an omen? Did this somehow mean we shouldn’t fly to San Diego the next day? Was the plane going to crash?

© 2026 Mona Jean Harley

Mona Jean Harley is looking forward to more time to write since she is freshly retired from a fulfilling 36-year career as a school social worker. She has enjoyed being part of the “First Monday First Person” writing group in Madison Wisconsin for nearly eight years. Noticing connections in life is expressed in her living and writing.

By Renee Lajcak

Renee writes both for the page and for performance, adjusting her style for each. “For spoken word, I use shorter sentences, more repetition. On the page, you can be more abstract. For listeners, I keep it visual, ‘in your face’,” she says. Performing lets her shape how her audience experiences her stories through her stress and intonation; reading aloud is how she prefers to publish on this blog.

Sometimes, on a cold winter night, I try to clean out my recipe boxes.  I open them up and flip through each section, thinking, “This I make all the time. This one I’ve never made.”  The first pile is large.  I’ve cooked most of my recipes many times. So why do I keep those in the second pile?  Why keep recipes that I’ve never made?

Maybe they are like a bucket list, a list of things that I would like to do should life give me enough time and motivation (and ingredients on hand).  That is, they are aspirational recipes.  And like other elusive aspirations, they carry with them the itchy subconscious ideas that, like a new dress or car, they will somehow perfect my life.  Let’s call them Martha Stewart aspirations.  For who hasn’t had at least once been bewitched by a photoshopped meal on a table decorated by a whole team of food stylists? I succumb to the witchery and think, “If only I can bake this amazing 3-layer cake with the glossy frosting, I can throw a perfect birthday party.  If only I can cook these plum dumplings, I will be able to truly honor my Czech and Slovak heritage,” (ignoring the fact that I really don’t care for dumplings).

But maybe some of these “never-cooked” recipes are still in my recipe boxes the same way we keep a photo that is out of focus or the one with Uncle Pete half off the edge and Aunt Edna with her eyes closed.  You keep those photos to remember a place, a time, a loved one.

One recipe I’ve never made was actually called “The Recipe.” Babi, my grandmother, had hot cereal or oatmeal cooked on her wood stove every morning of her life.  “The Recipe” is the delicious mix she used to make her hot cereal. Babi had passed by the time I finally got this non-recipe, but Uncle John, who lived with her, listed the ingredients on a card: “Maltex (for flavor), Malt-o-meal, Wheatena, Ralston, and 5-minute oatmeal (for fluffiness).”  I doubt I could even find all the ingredients these days, but I keep the recipe–not to actually make it, but to remember having hot cereal with fresh cream straight from the barn’s milkhouse and wild blueberries picked in the nearby Blueberry Hills.  And sugar sprinkled on top.

I also have a recipe glued on a recipe card that was originally an email from my globe-trotting cousin Kevin when he was in the Virgin Islands.  It’s for Gourmet French Toast and he spotted it on a menu:  “Thick slices of apple raisin bread dipped in a batter of Bailey’s and eggs and then grilled. Does that sound good or what???  Call me when it happens.”  This half-formed recipe brings up a vision of my always interesting, peripatetic cousin having breakfast at yet another lovely outdoor cafe as the sun slowly rises over a golden ocean.

My final example is a recipe from my sister when she lived in Alaska in the ’80s. Back then, her newspaper had a 4-panel comic strip that described and illustrated a recipe, featuring a moustachioed cartoon chef with a cat on his shoulder.  Michelle probably didn’t have much money for Christmas that year, so she cut out recipes and pasted each on a folded recipe card. It was a gift of time and love.  Of course I still hold onto one of these: Noodles and Feta Casserole.  When I come upon this recipe card, I think of her in the cozy Alaskan home she and her husband built themselves, sending me love from so far away.

So the next time I try to clean my recipe boxes, I’m going to forgive myself for having recipes I’ve never made.  There are reasons, albeit subconscious or nostalgic, that are even more satisfying than the actual finished dishes.

© 2026 Renee Lajcak

Renee is a newly retired English language teacher who has taught in several Asian countries but now enjoys her woodsy backyard the best.  She loves the connections made through storytelling and teaching conversational English, but writing about memories allows her to go inward to contemplate the good, the bad and the ugly.  But mostly the good. 

Loriann Knapton

Returning home from an afternoon excursion, I opened the back entryway of my house and was immediately transported back to my10-year-old self. There, in the breezeway blocking my entry, in all of its splendor, sat my rocking chair.

The solid oak glider chair with its richly carved back, tufted leather seat, and delicate front wheels looked smaller than I remembered. But it definitely was the chair from my youth. As a first-grader I sat in it while I learned to read with Dick and Jane and their puppy Spot. I rocked back and forth, forth and back, when I soothed my favorite babydoll to sleep. And several times, numerous times, more times than I can count, I sat defiantly kicking my feet against the rungs when mom put me in “time out” to “think about it.”  The chair is identified as a Victorian seamstress rocker and was considered an antique even in 1968, although I didn’t realize it then and frankly, I wouldn’t have cared anyway. I just knew that having it in the den of our home was comfortable. Until the day mom sold it for $50 to a carpenter’s helper.

The house where I grew up on Oneida Street in Portage Wisconsin was located directly across from the railroad depot. Built in 1848, the house was a throwback to the days when train travel ruled the United States and men earned their living as railroad conductors, brakemen, railyard mechanics, and roundhouse and depot attendants. In its day, the Portage stop was a thriving hub for traveling rail workers with “rail men” staying at the Oneida Hotel during layovers for a few days between shifts.

The houses in the neighborhood were occupied by Portage families whose fathers made their living working for the railroad. Despite being situated between four taverns and the Oneida Hotel, our street was a safe place for young children, and we roamed fearlessly throughout the neighborhood each day without care until dusk when our mothers would call us in for supper. When my parents purchased the house in the late 1950s, it was very much in need of updating. But they bought it anyway, with dreams of renovation as big and all-encompassing as their mortgage. The rocking chair came with the house, a remanent from the property’s heyday when the previous owner, a seamstress, spent her days mending and tailoring uniforms for local railroad workers.

When my dad passed away in 1967, the house was still very much in need of several updates. Mom met Mark, an easy-going young man with an ambitious spirit and a brand-new fiancée ,when she hired the carpenter he worked for to remodel our house. During the many weeks of renovation, Mom learned to appreciate Mark’s good humor and especially his patient demeanor with me, an “in-the-way” 10-year-old girl who had recently lost her dad.

Mark admired the rocking chair sitting in our den and several times asked Mom if she would be willing to sell it. At first mom resisted but as the completion date of the work drew near, she reconsidered and called Janelle, Mark’s fiancée, offering to sell her the chair.

I remember being sad the day the rocker left our house, but life went forward, and over time, I forgot about it. I grew up, married, had children, built my own life, and in 1996 moved to an old farmhouse in Columbia County’s Caledonia hills where, about five years later, I encountered Mark and his wife at a neighborhood card party.

I hadn’t seen him since I was a child, but he remembered me and asked if I remembered when he worked at my mother’s house. I did remember and apologized for being a pesty overly talkative 10-year-old during his time working for us. He smiled and with a grin said, “oh…you weren’t that annoying.”  A statement we both knew was an exceedingly kind lie.

Then I mentioned the chair. I asked him if he and Janelle still had it. The answer was yes. And did they still enjoy it? Again, yes. I told him I was so glad and shared the story about how I had begged Mom not to sell it. Mark looked at me very sincerely and said, “Would you like it back?” “OH, not at all” I blustered, “My mother wanted you to have it. She always thought so much of you and Janelle you know. I’m just very happy it has a good home.”  He smiled, went back to playing cards, and that was the last time I thought about the chair. Until it appeared in my back entryway last month.

I had to search to find a phone number for Mark and Janelle. I called a couple of mutual neighbors to track it down and in the tradition of the Caledonia township, found someone who knew someone who could give me a number. When Janelle answered the phone, I blurted out without preamble. “This is Lori Knapton, Did Mark leave a rocking chair in our entry way this afternoon?”  

She hesitated a minute before saying, “Oh, he must have dropped it off then. I knew he planned on it, but I didn’t realize it would be today. You know, we have enjoyed the rocker over the years, but we’re downsizing and Mark thought you might like to have it.” I thanked her profusely. Asked if I could pay for it, the answer was no, so a couple of days later I dropped a heartfelt thank-you note in the mail.

The chair sits in my living room near the mahogany curio cabinet that also is a memory from my mother’s house, given to me when she moved to assisted living. It is the same curio cabinet that sat next to the rocking chair on Oneida Street all those years ago. Every time I pass by the chair, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Not by the rocker itself, although it is beautiful and I am extremely pleased to have it, but my gratitude is for the kindness of an exceptionally good man and his gracious wife who understand the value in the memories of a little girl. This is the real gift.

© 2026 Loriann Knapton

Loriann Knapton has been writing since childhood.  Having crafted countless rhymes, short stories, and personal essays over her sixty-odd years she has a keen interest in ensuring her family memories are recorded for the next generations. Her writing reflects the humorous and poignant experiences of growing up in 1960s small-town America with her mom and disabled dad.

By Janet Manders

Yesterday was one of those sub-zero, bone-chilling winter days in Wisconsin. I had no desire to bundle up and leave the warmth of my house, so I poured a second cup of coffee into my favorite Christmas mug, grabbed paper and pencil to make a shopping list, and opened my wooden Longaberger recipe box. I pulled out a loose-leaf piece of paper titled “Grandma’s Cheese Torte” and paused to revel in warm memories of a dessert that’s a yearly delectable delight.

My siblings and I aren’t 100% sure when our tradition of indulging in this holiday treat began. As youngsters, cheese torte made by either our grandma or our Great Aunt Reggie was a seasonal treat that we eagerly awaited. Years later, when both were gone, and our own children were young, Mom became the baker, creating something that looked and tasted even better than we remembered from our youth. Did she change Grandma’s recipe? Or did she start from scratch with a new one? My sister thinks the latter is true and that it was lifted from the Philadelphia Cream Cheese box cover. She is the proud owner of a recipe card, written in Mom’s neat handwriting, and now yellowed with food stains in the corner.

I copied that recipe onto a loose-leaf page, and it’s pristine white. I tried to make the torte once in my early twenties, but it didn’t live up to my family’s standards, so I filed the recipe and left the making of the masterpiece to Mom. Luckily, in the years to follow, my daughter, Sara, and my nephew, Ben, showed more persistence than I did. Each of them learned Mom’s secrets to preparing this family tradition. Without them, our yearly indulgence may have become nothing more than a memory, just like the multitude of three-by-five-inch cards crammed into my Longaberger box.

The layers of the torte remind me of my mom’s personality. The bottom layer, a crust, is made by mixing 24 crushed graham crackers with ½ cup of melted butter and ¼ cup of sugar, then pressing it into the bottom of a 13×9-inch pan and along the sides. It’s baked for 5 minutes at 300 degrees.

Mom’s interactions with others could feel as brusque as the crunchy crust. She knew exactly how something should be done and was rarely patient when watching others do it slowly or in a way she didn’t expect. Sara remembers her grandma teaching her the art of one of the steps for the torte and saying, “Not like that. Give me that spatula. Do it like this.” 

Despite her curt approach to instruction, Mom was deeply loved by both her children and her grandchildren. Like the crust, she was recognized as the firm foundation in our family. We all admired the quiet strength she showed in her mid-nineties as she cared for my dad when he succumbed to Alzheimer’s, and then marveled when this was followed by her living independently, for the first time in her life, until the age of ninety-eight.

In contrast to the crisp base of the torte, the filling and topping are creamy, providing a melt-in-your-mouth sweetness. The soft middle includes 16 ounces of cream cheese, 3 slightly beaten eggs, 2/3 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and ½ teaspoon of almond extract that are beaten with a mixer, poured over the crust, and then baked for 25 minutes at a slightly higher temperature of 350 degrees. Once cooled, 16 ounces of sour cream, 1/3 cup of sugar, and a ½ teaspoon of almond extract are mixed, spread over the middle layer, and then popped into the oven for 10 more minutes.

Those two sweet layers feel like the epitome of my mom to me. She loved her family with a sweet, fierce quality. Although quiet, she was very intelligent and had an amazing sense of humor that could take you by surprise. She also took great pride in seeing her cheese torte legacy preserved.

This year will be our first Christmas without our mom and grandma. We’ll all miss her dearly. But the cheese torte and the memories that are almost as satisfying will both be there.

©2026 Janet Manders

Janet Manders writes stories about her life, with the hopes her children and grandchildren will appreciate them years from now. Recent works of hers have been published on True Stories Well Told, on 101words.org and as part of the 2025 Birren Center’s Anthology Collection entitled Second Chances. Janet’s memoir, The Marrowthon, will be published next year by Written Dreams. Janet lives in Madison with her husband, near her daughters, grandchildren, and writing friends.

By Faith Ellestad

 I am standing at my dresser with six socks in my hand, trying to decide which degrees of blackness make up the best pair. On closer inspection, I decide one is probably navy blue, and stuff it back into the sock drawer.  OK. I think I’ve got a match until I notice that one of the very blackest socks is about 2 inches longer than the other.  It must be from one of those extra-long pairs I bought, thinking they wouldn’t pinch my toes, but in fact, bunch up in my shoes.  Time is marching on. I have already spent 15 minutes angsting over the color of my footwear, and am still dressed only in a towel, getting later and later for work. Suddenly, it occurs to me that I can wear boots and no one will have any idea what color my socks are. Picking up the pace, I fling on my outfit of the day (sweater, plaid slacks, boots), and head out.  I am expected to be there on time, all the time.  It’s important.  I am the department scheduler.  All assignments lead, ultimately, to me. I should really have a backup for such emergencies as this.

Arriving at the hospital, my intent is to hide out in my office and accomplish all the projects I didn’t finish yesterday. Immediately upon opening my door, I detect a flashing message light on my phone. I’d better check voicemail before I start anything else.  It’s a sick call. I’ll need to fill out a form.  Crap, I’m almost out of sick slips.  I really should order more before I forget. Of course, I can’t remember where in my computer files I stored the order forms so I start a search.  Perusing my folders, I find all sorts of outdated documents and begin deleting. Eventually, I stumble across the order requests and fill one out. While I’m at it, I should probably order supplies of the other forms I use.  There’s no telling if I will remember where to find them next time, so I complete and print out three more requests.  Normally, I would ask a student to deliver these to the mailroom, but there are no students today. It’s exam week and they are all off studying, so I take the forms down myself.

 Back at my desk, I decide to check my email. Fourteen since yesterday, some time-sensitive, some not, two junk. Delete. Delete. I wish the computer guys would fix the junk filters.  I answer the ones with immediate need, then  “mark as unread” the rest so I won’t completely forget about them.  Phone message light is flashing again.  Am I ready with tomorrow’s Operating Room assignment list? Honestly, how could I be?  I’ve been extremely busy. I’ll get it ready now. Except I’m very hungry.  All that sock business this morning took up valuable breakfast time. Luckily, on my way out, I stashed a piece of raisin bread in my purse to eat during break.  But what is a break for, if not coffee?  I trudge down several corridors to access the machine. 

Finally, mission accomplished, I head back to my office to prepare the personnel list for tomorrow’s OR schedule.  Almost instantly, someone appears in my doorway with an urgent need, requiring an adjustment to the assignments for Friday.  I remove him from the available staff list, and fill out a sick slip from my rapidly dwindling supply, knowing we will be short-staffed in the OR come tomorrow.  But if you need a root canal, you need one, and frankly, I would not want anyone in that type of pain performing a medical procedure on me.  I’m sure the OR director will understand why I didn’t consult him before approving this request. Executive decision by me.  I take a moment to bemoan the sad fact that I am not paid an executive salary, and to congratulate myself on my timely reorder of sick call slips.

Time ticking away. I have made no dent in yesterday’s unfinished business, and am building up new chores by the minute.  Another presence looms in the doorway.  She needs an early out tomorrow to attend a meeting she forgot to mention last week.  Oh, and two other faculty will need to be relieved for the same meeting. She sits down in my extra chair. “Oh please,” I pray silently, “don’t tell me the story of your life again right this minute.  I am so busy.” Prayer goes unheard. At least her tale is only 20 minutes long this time.  My, this day has taken a downward turn, and not just for me.  Imagine the OR director discovering he’ll have to deal with all this tomorrow.  At least he gets well paid for it, I snark silently, as I head down to the cafeteria to buy lunch on my hourly salary. I bring the plastic shell of pasta salad back to my desk to eat while I work. Pasta salad is cheap and can be inhaled quickly when I am feeling pressed for time. I eat a lot of pasta salad.

Assignment schedule completed on paper and delivered to the Operating Room director, I begin to enter it into our new database program.  But something is not right.  Many names are not showing up. The schedule should have been published on-line long before this.  My call to the IT guy goes to voicemail.  He will be back from Canada next week.  Great.  No help there. Sadly, I will have to enter everything by hand and publish it the old way. Another precious hour of my day unexpectedly co-opted by technical failure.

 I know a barrage of calls is forthcoming from people who can’t figure out what they are doing tomorrow because THE SCHEDULE IS NOT ONLINE. They will just have to go to voicemail. I am already too busy to listen to whining, even my own. Overtaken by a sense of urgency, I type, copy and deliver paper schedules around the entire hospital, including the many people who request them each day, but often don’t even bother to glance at them. Irritating, but at least this futile exercise will allow me stretch my legs.  Maybe I’ll even run into someone who would enjoy sharing a complaint or two. I’ll make time for that.  Yep, there’s Amy. And Mel.  Especially Mel.  Another 15 minutes gone.  Therapeutic, though. 

Refreshed, I return to my office, prepared, finally, to tackle yesterday’s backlog.  Right after I check my voicemail. And my email.  And restock my absence slips. 

Wow, it’s 4:30!  Where did the day go?  I guess the in-basket will still be there in the morning. Maybe if I just wear sandals tomorrow, I can get an earlier start.

© 2026 Faith Ellestad

Faith has been writing to amuse her family since she was old enough to print letters to her grandparents.  Now retired, she has taken the opportunity to sort through family memorabilia, discovering a wellspring of tales begging to be told, which she hopes to expand upon in written form (where appropriate, of course!).   She and her husband live in Madison, Wisconsin. They are the parents of two great sons and a loving daughter-in-law, and recently expanded their family to include Thistle and Bramble, two irrepressible young felines.

By Carol Blatter

Carol described this as a “runaway story, or collage essay”–in other words an essay in which one thought prompts the next, the writer following in wonder at where the mind goes.

This huge truck, the longest truck I had ever remembered seeing in months, maybe years, pulled up next to our home. But, it did not come onto our driveway, that would have been a disaster, the truck was much too long to fit. On it was a mega-sized picture of an animal that after eating papers, the remains were flying all over, fitting for a shredding destruction mobile service.  Four boxes of clinical counseling charts and two boxes of miscellaneous house files, like old tax and medical records, were emptied and fed into the shredding machine. Remember when I was first licensed as a clinical social worker? Remember when I started seeing people? A long time ago.  

Anyway, about the boxes, clinical charts went through the machine, charts of individuals and families, poof, all gone, like death to people. Proof I was no longer a clinician. And death is getting closer, I lost two friends over a few months, poof, they were gone before they told me they were leaving. They just got up and left. I’m at the age when people, without my permission, leave. They die. Just like that, they leave. They die. And I’ll leave, too, I’ll die, and I won’t have any say in when it will happen. 

I was going to be an actress. That’s what I thought when I was a kid, after taking lessons for years, you know the kind that prepares you for the theater, acting, voice and diction, and dancing to help you move on stage, no klutzes, only actors who learned to move with grace and dignity. Grace and dignity, I can’t say that was me during those years, I was still a klutz, dancing helped, but not too much, I was who I was. Imagine I got here eighty-three years ago. My parents decided I had no say in entering life, and I’ll have no say in leaving it. Loss of control. I can’t control anything. Even getting up in the morning is beyond my control; it just happens. So I say a prayer thanking God for getting me up. 

Does God plan it, or is it dumb luck that I get up and even make it through the day? Carol died, not me, another Carol, she was sick. Colon cancer. She left behind two adult children, a third who disappeared and was never found, and five grandchildren. Fran died; she wasn’t sick, at least they didn’t think she was sick. She recovered from a hospital stay with pneumonia and was well, so she and her husband thought. Off to Florida for vacation, and in the wee hours one morning, she lay on the couch, her husband found her, and she expired. She left behind two adult children, they’re married and have children, yes, she had five grandchildren. I miss my friends. No one to call, chat, and share what’s happening in our lives. 

And the people I helped, I wonder what happened to them. Maybe they like themselves better. Maybe they like their spouses better. Maybe their kids are doing better. Less arguments. Less tumult. Less misery. What if things didn’t get better? I would feel sad. Many times I feel sad, and I don’t know why. Maybe getting older is scaring me and making me feel sad. Death may come at any time, and I will be taken. That’s scary. I’ll leave my husband, our daughter, our son-in-law, and our granddaughter behind. That’s our family, we’re small. I never wanted many children; one was enough. I never really liked kids, yes, I was a babysitter for many years, and I had to like kids then, and I needed the money for clothes so I saved my money from babysitting.

My parents are dead, my dad died of lung cancer at the young age of fifty-six, my mom died of atherosclerosis, plaque build up in the arteries of the heart, at age seventy-five and a half. Forty years ago, she died. Had her first heart attack at age forty-two, I was ten years old. I was scared she would die. I’ve outlived my parents, but outliving dad wasn’t difficult; he was so young when he died, and that’s because he was a smoker. If he hadn’t smoked or stopped years before, he would have lived into old age like others in his family. Never much of an earner. Never much of a Dad. Never had time or knew how to be a Dad. 

I am in good health with one exception. I’ve lost height, which I couldn’t afford to lose. I was always petite at 4’9″, and now I’m three inches shorter due to the fracture of vertebrae in my spine last year. I’m ashamed of the changes in my body. My breasts, diaphragm, and abdomen are all squished together. It’s hard to feel feminine. 

I don’t want to die. I want time with our granddaughter. She lives with her parents near DC, in MD. They make two visits to us a year. I’m tired of goodbyes. It’s because I’m old I have to say many goodbyes. To people. To my career. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die;. . .” Thankfully, I am still here. 

© 2026 Carol J. Wechsler Blatter

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to The Gift of Long Life Personal Stories on the Aging Experience 2024 Birren Center Collection, Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, Jewish Literary Journal, Jewish Writing Project, New Millennium Writings, 101words.org, and poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and a very proud grandmother, and a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice.