Cookie Season (Ann)

We're halfway through cookie season, so Ann is regaling us with her own story of selling cookies as a Girl Scout:

Ann von Dehsen

02.08.2022

Cookie Time

When I started writing this, I was eating the last of my Thin Mints, still my favorite Girl Scout cookie so it took me back to my brief time as a Girl Scout. I did not enjoy cookie selling season. Back then cookies were sold door to door in January, and, in North Jersey, there was usually a good 3-6 inches of snow on the ground throughout the month. So, I’d bundle up in many layers, trudge through the snowy and often icy walkways to my neighbors’ front doors hoping I wouldn’t drop my pen in the snow or lose my order sheet to the cold winds.
Some of my fellow scouts told me their fathers sold the cookies at work. Great idea! Of course, my father would happily do it too! Wrong! When I asked him about it, he said “absolutely not, this is your job, it’s not my job. Sorry but it’s your responsibility.“
Wow, I was really not expecting that reply! So, at our next Girl Scout meeting, I was felling a little dejected as I listened to some of the girls’ (or fathers’) sale totals so far—my totals were far behind. Walking home in my Girl Scout uniform, I saw Mr. Esposito’s trash truck near our driveway. He always said hi to all the kids but today he stopped me and said “Wait, are you selling cookies? Me and the guys, we want some!” No problem I said as I whipped out that order sheet and within 5 minutes I had sold about 30 boxes to Mr. Esposito and his two workers. “My family, we just can’t get enough!” said Mr. Esposito as he hopped into his truck. With that shot of adrenaline, I walked right past my house and into another neighborhood where I sold several more boxes.
When it was time to report our final total sales, I was still behind the father daughter duos, but felt like I finally deserved my seat at the end of cookie season pizza party.

If you want to transcribe for Best Day, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. You can also share our older buds' adventures by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And if you or the older buds have love stories, then you or they can submit stories through our portal right here. We're especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.

And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in your life. If you can't be there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the first time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.

Curated by Caitlin Cieri

To Stay or Start Again (José and Eleanor)

Valentines' Day was this Monday, and that got me thinking about how love changes when you get older. How do you keep the fire alive when the honeymoon period ends? How do you know when a relationship is over? How can you find a new relationship after losing the love of your life? These older buds, with their years of wisdom, are more than happy to answer some of our questions about love:

José Dominguez

04.01.2021

My search for love in the internet

“Why don’t you get marriage again Pepe?” asked Lolita, a 6 year old girl, in a family gathering at Houston Texas. I answered because: “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” She insisted.
“Of dying in the intent of being at the level of the demands and expectations.” Lolita was confused by my answer but all the gown ups laughed. That marked my beginning of the search for a partner. The second happening related was to meet a truly happy couple in our Catholic Church who contracted an internet company to find a love partner, and they did. Thinking on the easiness of meeting people I decided to contract one of those companies to find me a couple.
Oh, it was an overwhelming experience! The first tip to increase the probability of success was to upload a good photo of myself. For that purpose I used a tripod and a camera timer to make several trials. The first was a straight shoot but it looked as passport photo. I turned my face to the right and somehow my face’s imperfections were exposed and I thought it was a negative PR effort. Then I turned my face to the left and the shadows appeared around my eyes and a remembered a horror picture about Dracula so I continue insisting. With glasses with no glasses. Smiling or serious. Looking up or looking down. I was tired of so much vanity that decided that my multifaceted personality was more or less touched by one of those silly photos and I thought that Photoshop will do the rest. Secondly I had to write something about me that communicated what kind of alien I was. So I simply wrote: “I don’t have too much demands to ask to the person I want to find, except to be as much human as she can be because it’s the only thing I can offer, a constant pursuit of humanism and that’s it.”
My next activity was to scan the many photos posted in the website, and after spending hours of concentrated effort decided to select as favorites a few of them. It was a weird feeling to select without to be in touch, but I didn’t create the system so I claimed as favorites 5 or 6 of them. But wait a minute, none of my selections prospered, none of my favorites asked more information. But I didn’t mind my Photoshop photo and my enigmatic plea of humanism created a big attraction of many ladies interested in my poor humanity. I received a lot of selections as favorite.
Next I began to read their expectations and I sensed their were out of my imagination. Many of them loved to cruise in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific islands, Bali, etc. Many others were action oriented and loved to ski at Aspen, Canada or Switzerland, most of them enjoyed to drink wine in fancy restaurants listening romantic music, other included to dance modern music. Others loved to share their vital spaces with dogs, cats, birds, plants, fishes, etc., several indicated that loved to be passionately kissed at the light of the moon until the sunrise. I was in shock! How am I going to cruise in the Mediterranean Sea if I need my SEPTA Senior Id Card to transit in Philadelphia? How am I going to eat lobster and champagne if I always leave home with my lunch and tea in my bag because I can’t afford to expend money (thank God that the Senior Center give me the chance to eat for free). How can I go skiing in the mountain if walking in the streets of Philly is per se a challenge and a treat to my security and well being? How am I going to stay awake kissing a lady for hours until the sunrise when it happens that at 9 or 9:30 PM I’m not included among the awaked population? No, no, surely I was overwhelmed by those profiles.
Alas I was very seriously reprehended by an offended lady who marked me as favorite and who I decided to ignore, so she texted me: “You are not conscious that I selected as favorite so perfect idiot”, she wrote. Well, I thought at least she found a kind of perfection in me. But please don’t think I was playing as a total passive and indifferent observer. I was in contact to several ladies but after I tried to answer their questions about me the contact was ended. One asked the books I like to read and I submit my modest repertoire and that was it. Another asked my life’s goal and I answered that my goal was to have no goal. An exception was a very religious lady to whom I decided to cut any relationship because her strong religious feelings could confront us on serious matters as the eternal life. Looking my statistics, my fans were diminishing by the day surely because my poor flirtatious skills so I canceled my membership to the website. They asked for the reason and I told them that I have found what I was looking for, which was absolutely true.

I become totally sure that it was better to continue with my normal life with no struggle over having the proper, perfect or convenient companionship. The only condition would be to be authentic and honest the rest would be tanks to the law of the consequences, to my karma or to the will of God. 

Eleanor Kazdan

12.21.2021

Love Letters

I was fortunate to meet the love of my life when I was 21, we have now been married for 50 years. I’m not sure either of us fully appreciated each other or the amazingness of what we had in the beginning. I suppose it’s hard not to be a bit blasé in one’s early twenties. We had frequently been apart for periods of time — Gary went to week-long science conferences and I occasionally went on choir tours — and I welcomed those times as opportunities to feel more independent.
In 1976, when we had been married for about five years, we had a two and a half month separation. We had moved to England with the idea of living there. Gary was going to get a job and I was going to pursue my singing career. It didn’t work out the way we had hoped, and Gary decided to return to Toronto to finish his studies. After much thought I decided to stay in London for a few months to continue my musical studies. I would live with my aunt and uncle in the suburbs.
Communication in those days wasn’t what it is now! There were no cell phones, no computers, and telephoning was astronomically expensive. So we wrote letters, knowing it would take about five days for the other person to receive them. We were both lonely and missed each other terribly. We spoke on the phone once a week for five minutes. Our feelings for each other were intensified by being apart. So began two months of incredible letters, many pages long, filled with longing, loneliness, as well as details of our daily lives and personal struggles. We wrote almost every day. I have kept all those letters and hadn’t looked at them for many years. Recently I dug them out of the fireproof box, trying to piece together some family drama when I was in London and Gary was staying with my family. I found what I was looking for, and I began to read those many letters. What a blessing and a gift it is to still have them. Gary and I have begun to read some of them aloud to each other. There are so many details of that time that have been forgotten. And there they are in those letters from long ago.

If you want to transcribe for Best Day, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. You can also share our older buds' adventures by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And if you or the older buds have love stories, then you or they can submit stories through our portal right here. We're especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.

And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in your life. If you can't be there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the first time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.

Curated by Caitlin Cieri

Thank You, Bidley (Frances and Eleanor)

Bidley is a Temple student who's been reliably typing and transcribing stories for us for the past four months. Today, we're celebrating his hard work with a collection of some of the stories he worked on:

Frances Bryce

08.17.2021

Decisions That Affect Others

Sunday’s Inquirer included a timely opinion article of the antivaxxers. She called them bullies and who are immune to reason, and the needless appeal to science, common sense and decency is missing so stop begging and pleading. She included a school meeting about vaccine and mask when a deranged dad said to the professional staff “We will find you.” He screamed, and a group berated them as they tried to drive away to the medical facility where many beds were occupied by patients who refused to get vaccinated. One man said his wife was released early, so the staff could take care of Covid 19 patients who had been vaccinated. 

This was a timely article, since I had learned that my niece and her ex are soon to be wedded again in 2022, I was taken aback that they had not been vaccinated. The ex and my niece live in Maryland. Philadelphia was the venue, and he was in charge of the sound system and other necessary equipment for the band that would perform in Philadelphia. He learned that he was required to be vaccinated or have a Covid 19 test 72 hours before the event. He just made the date for the test in order to be able to satisfy the condition for the task at hand the last day before leaving town for Philadelphia. 

Somehow my niece my niece was not able to get the test hence she and I would not be able to get the test hence she and I would not be able to attend the session. I was disappointed because although I was legal, I could not go and leave her alone. We had a later discussion about the decision not to have gotten the vaccine. The FDA had not officially approved it, which was a process rather than a problem with the vaccine, then the news that it changed one’s DNA, only initially, then the DNA returned to the former. I tried to correct these issues and suggested that the people who are qualified to answer these questions, should be the ones to listen and follow the science.

This realization for him would have affected many others, when the venue was held, the band, customers who came to the venue, and if he was not vaccinated, testing every two weeks. Plus, his soon to be his wife again, she would benefit and realize that she was not the only one affected by her decision not to be vaccinated. I was disappointed that I could not attend without leaving her behind. We are not an island and often affect others without thinking of the, “not only I am affected by decisions made.”  

 

Eleanor Kazdan

07.02.2020

The Past Is Three Months Ago

So I’ve been thinking about memories and memoirs lately in a different way since life just seems different. Most of the memoirs that I’ve written in the class for the past two years have been based on memories and events of my childhood or at least of many years ago. So where did the past start? Now I have a different perception of the past.
As for most of us the past starts more than three months ago. Simple things I took for granted are now a part of the past. Hugging and kissing friends, sharing food, traveling to Mexico and other foreign countries, the list goes on and on. A crazy thing is watching movies and programs where people are in bars and thinking, “Oh my God, they are not social distancing, they are not wearing masks.” And then you say be careful. I think all of us have this visceral reaction in seeing those events now. It's just crazy the way things just seem in the past.
Seeing my family in Canada was a thing of the past, but I’m happy to say that at this present time I am in Toronto bonding with my 5 year old grandson Aaron. It has turned out to be a special time. By strict order of the Canadian government, I have to quarantine for 14 days. They can check on you by emailing and calling you. One time, my husband answered one of their calls but there was nobody there. They put fear in you, you know so that you feel you have to quarantine and I believe we should anyway. But yeah, there's a huge penalty for not doing it so that fear is enough to make you obey the quarantine. Usually we stay a brief 3 days visiting, but now it will be about 21 days. Despite my resistance and almost dread it has turned out to be a blessing.

 

If you want to transcribe for Best Day, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. You can also share our older buds' adventures by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And if you or the older buds have stories for the month of February, then you or they can submit stories through our portal right here. We're especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.

And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in your life. If you can't be there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the first time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.

Curated by Caitlin Cieri

Groundhog Day (Deborah)

This week we're doing something a little different and featuring a story by a facilitator! Last year, Deborah told a story about going to Gobblers Knob to celebrate Groundhog Day in person, but we transcribed it well after Groundhog Day had already passed. I'd been sitting on this story for months, waiting for Groundhog Day 2022 to share it with you. So warm up with some spirits (or hot cocoa if you're under 21), strike up the music and sing the Pennsylvania polka with Punxsutawny Phil and the Goundhog Club. But watch out for that first step, it's a doozy!

Deborah Stewart

02/04/2021

Groundhog Day

So each February I’m reminded about the time that my friends and I took a road trip to Punxsutawney, PA to attend the annual Groundhog Day Celebration. My friend Amy who was in grad school at the University of Pittsburgh at the time invited me and her sister to join her and a group of her B school friends for the annual celebration. I had seen the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Geena Davis. For some reason I loved that movie with the weatherman who woke up each day to find that it was once again February 2nd. Never one to turn down the chance to experience something new I figured “What the heck, let’s make it happen.”   
My friend Kia and I drove from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to meet Amy and her friends. Traffic on the PA turnpike was horrific and I seemed like the drive across state was neverending. When we arrived in Pittsburgh, it was late. We only had time to change into our warm clothes and hop into Amy’s car follow the caravan heading north to Punxsutawney.
Punxsutawney was small, very quaint and cold. Really, really cold. The group met in town at a local bar which reminded me of the saloons that you see in old movies There was even a jukebox in the corner. Amy's friends had secured a few rooms in a local motel so we could hang out, and drink and wait for the festivities to begin. Apparently it’s a good idea to drink copious amounts of alcohol leading up to the celebration as a means of protecting the body against the harsh cold.
Around 5 a.m. our group headed out to Gobblers Knob, the sight where Punxsutawney Phil would make his weather prediction later that morning. Upon arriving I noticed a few things: First t was snowing lightly, second it was minus 2 degrees and dark out, and third it was jammed packed with jubilant people. Just like in the movie the crowd was singing songs. We sang multiple rounds of “I Got You Babe” and tunes by the Beach Boys and other well known artists; we sang them all at the top of our lungs. There was dancing and the crowd even circulated a beach ball for some additional fun. It was cold and snowing but the people didn't seem to mind it too much. Around 7:15 a.m. the Inner Circle, the men that you see on t.v. with the black coats and top hats that are responsible for the celebration, they took the stage and they greeted the crowd. Shortly thereafter they woke Phil up and pulled him from a small tree stump that sat on a table in the middle of the stage. The crowd cheered and they began talking to Phil. "Good Morning Phil" "What's that you said Phil?” "What's it gonna be this year Phil?"
This went on for some time until finally a member of the Inner Circle read Phil's prediction and lifted him into the air. I cannot recall what Punxsutawney Phil predicted that year whether it would be an early spring or 6 more weeks of winter. What I will always remember though is how quickly the whole celebration ended. Immediately after Phil's weather prediction the music stopped, the Inner Circle packed Phil up and left the stage, and the crowd dispersed very quickly. It was almost as if the events at Gobblers Knob never happened. Or perhaps it was that the warmth associated with alcohol consumption wore off and the reality of the cold set in.

If you want to transcribe for Best Day, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. You can also share our older buds' adventures by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And if you or the older buds have stories for Groundhog Day, then you or they can submit stories through our portal right here. We're especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.

And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in your life. If you can't be there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the first time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.

Curated by Caitlin Cieri