I almost gave up after ten years of telephone calls and letters complaining to the City of Bloomington, Illinois about the trenches of potholes in the road in front of my house, half a dozen of them up and down the road. The City of Bloomington complained back to me that they “don’t have money for asphalt”, and would only put a shovelful of asphalt into a pothole here and there, from time to time. I also wrote to my state senators regarding this matter, see below for my third letter in as many years. While their staffers were very pleasant when I telephoned, my governmental representatives at this very highest level were completely ineffectual in getting any repair other than another laye

My brother Peter was admirably close to our paternal grandmother and she loved him deeply, but toward me she was always untrustworthy. I greatly admired my paternal grandmother’s life accomplishments of supporting her own mother, an immigrant from Norway, and for raising her son (my father) as a single mother before there were support systems for single mothers, while working as the first woman City Parks And Recreation Playground Director in St. Paul, Minnesota. But my loving feelings toward her only made her betrayals more difficult to endure. When I first learned to walk, I went searching for affection as there was none from my mother or father. Maybe there was, and if so I am sorry to

Even in high school, the boys of the northern state of Minnesota played a rough game of ice hockey. I had never seen a ice hockey game so I had no idea how rough it would be. I had graduated high school but was visiting my parents, so I talked my mother into going to see my brother play on his high school ice hockey team. I thought he should be supported. My father did not want to go, probably because the sport was too violent for him, and he wanted to sip some brew instead. Mother and I were about the only ones in the bleachers for this very minor league hockey game, but I was there to support my brother, so we settled in. It did not take long before the action got heated. I had no id

My brother Peter has not spoken to me since I came back from Peace Corps volunteer service in 1980, which is almost forty years ago. Just before I flew to Mali, West Africa, which was my service location, my sister told me not to go, that if I went she would never speak to me again. That was so outlandish that I could hardly believe it. I did go overseas to fulfill my commitment to serve my country and to try to make the world a better place in whatever way I could, and my sister Carla never spoke to me again. My brother Peter also never spoke to me again. In the next decades they would come from out-of-town, take possession of our parents’ home, then physically charge at me, yelling, t

If I had not found this family portrait in my late father’s estate papers, I would never have known what my sister Carla Throckmorton Hertz’s 3rd son, Michael, looks like. He is a fine looking young man, I understand from my parent’s conversation that he has been teaching mathematics at a university. That is all I know about him. I wish him the absolute best. It breaks my heart to not to know these three children of my sister Carla and brother-in-law Bob. In years long past I tried to contact them, tried to send them gifts, but I could not get through to them. I know that it has given my sister Carla pleasure to deny me my nephews, what a strange woman she is. Early on my brother-in-la

When I picked up shed leaves from the floor around my living room Ficus tree, one of them moved, it was this lovely brown butterfly. I thought that it was a moth, but then I saw that it did not have a moth’s feathery or saw-edged antennae, its antennae were the narrow shafts with a bulb at the end of a butterfly. The brown butterfly seemed worn out but not damaged. I gave it a bit of the applesauce* that I made earlier, but it had no interest, no strength, no...but then it drank. My heart goes out to this frail, brief bit of life. Some butterflies last a year, most last only a few days. I put this one to rest on my bedside nightstand. It walked around a little bit, but it did not fly a

From the beginning, my brother Peter has been close to my sister Carla's and brother-in-law Bob’s children. As have been their paternal and maternal grandparents. Only I was excluded. My sister Carla’s three sons, with their uncle Peter, and their grandparents

The very moment that I saw the twin sons of my sister Carla and brother-in-law Bob, I loved them. Tristan and Jason were so healthy, so full of vitality, so beautiful! I had never seen such magnificent babies. I said, “Their heads are so big!” meaning their life force, their brain power, their perceptions seemed to be very big, expansive, as in these are very smart babies. My sister snapped at me, “That’s enough.” as if I had insulted them, and she snatched them away from me. I never saw them again, until once in passing when they were grown into teenagers, and I saw them at our parents’ house. I had not known that my sister was there and had come to make dinner for our parents. I stepp

Relaxing on Twitter, I see that in my second month of active tweeting, I have accumulated a new follower every few days or so. I am up to 22 followers, and I am following about 50± tweeps, twitterers, tweeters, which is a group of people so new to the world that their name has not even fully formed! Amusing, pleasing, curious are the feelings this generates. By the by, the twitter (of a bird) is “a call consisting of repeated light tremulous sounds”, whereas a tweet is “the chirp of a small or young bird”, all of which sounds kind of insulting when applied to people. However, these definitions will sort themselves out as tweeters begin to more effectively wield the powerful weapon that Tw

After I graduated with my master’s degree from Ohio State University, a friend of mine from university, Kinko Ito, visited me at my parents’ house in Plain City, Ohio, where they had retired on a couple of acres, growing soybeans one year and corn the next as planted on lease to a neighboring farmer. Kinko was one of my very favorite friends. She taught me a lot about Japanese culture, she introduced me to some of her Japanese friends, and she even tried to teach me to speak and write some Japanese basics. I was very pleased to see her enjoy being out in the beautiful Ohio countryside. She was interested in watching father’s model trains, but she left early, without spending the night as

Today is the astronomical start of summer for everyone living north of the equator, it is our summer solstice. I usually post once a day, but today is such a beautiful day, even though I am trapped inside working on my late father’s lawsuit, that the beauty of this day spills in my study window, and occasionally I pause to go with the flow. While I work, I listen to some San Diego smooth jazz by the handsome Brian Culbertson. Brian Culbertson at the Gardena Jazz Festival (2017), 5:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyPSMaWCUHs Brian Culbertson feat Michael Lington [Full Concert] (Jazz Burghausen 2004) ), 1:06:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PILBV8rnoUk Caption: In Harmony My Spiderwort

Another story I told to cheer up my father when he was in the nursing home was about the time a tornado went over our house in Kansas. I brought in this old photograph to help my father recall the story. It was beautiful to see his eyes brighten with feelings, to see him bow his head over the memories. I loved so many things about my father. This story is one of them. When we lived in Kansas this ≈ 270 lb solid oak roll top desk was in our basement. My father studied chemistry at this desk, and he kept the spare parts for his model train layouts in neat little trays arranged in the cubbyholes of this desk. One day when the sky was ominous over Kansas, my father was outside, and the rest

The tragedy occurred in November 1958, when I was ten years old, my sister Carla was seven, and my brother Peter was four. I know these things precisely because I found the court documents in an envelope tucked into a box of family photographs after my parents’ passing. Their lawsuit against the United States Government failed, perhaps because they lied a little about the circumstances of the tragedy. My father was employed by Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas as a graduate student/research assistant in electrical engineering and later in organic chemistry. My mother worked as a typist or as a waitress or perhaps as both, then as a secretary for the American Angus Association.

These old photographs show the family of five that my parents created to the best of their ability. Caption: My Family Of Birth Through The Prism Of Time Dr. Peter Eugene Throckmorton, Ph.D., DOB 01-20-27, DOD 01-18-16, 88 years Phyllis Marie Throckmorton, B.S., DOB 01-28-29, DOD 10-07-13 84 years Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A., DOB 02-10-49 Carla Louis Throckmorton, B.S., DOB 01-27-52 Peter Eugene Throckmorton, Jr., B.S., DOB 01-30-55 collage by Annmarie Throckmorton 2018

It is effortless to be fair to those we love, it is easy to be fair to those we like, but to be fair to those we loath takes nobility. Caption: President Trump As A Fair And Noble Fish Commemorating The American-North Korean Summit by Annmarie Throckmorton, June 12, 2018

I was probably about three years old because I had learned to walk and was well on my way exploring the world to see what was in it. One day on the lawn in front of my home I found a wonderfully soft yellow flower. It looked beautiful, it was fragrant, and it tasted very good. The woman who was minding me held it under my chin and told me that the yellow reflection of sunlight from the flower to my chin meant that I like butter. I knew that was nonsense, and now over half a century later I wonder how I knew that it was nonsense. I was a clever toddler not to be taken in by it. She also told me that the lovely flower had a name, it was a dandelion, and it was a weed which meant that it w

From late 2007 until early 2013, I maintained my parents in their own home by providing them with their daily meals and everything else that they needed so that they could enjoy the comfort of their own home for as long as possible. My parents had insisted that I move from where I wanted to be, to come live in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois, and they bought me an inexpensive house ($100K) only ten minutes away to make their care convenient. I accepted this, even though it stalled my life, because I love my parents. Every month or so, my sister Carla and/or brother Peter drove through Illinois on their way from Minnesota to North Carolina where my sister’s twin sons lived and my brother maint

The day that Father had the stroke which put him in the nursing home, and because Mother could not live alone in their house due to her dementia and grief, I moved her into my house. Surprisingly, mother went willingly. I just opened my car door, she got in, I drove her to my house. She went directly to bed in the bedroom that I had already prepared for her knowing that that day would come. I had a lot of difficulty getting mother to eat, I had to coax and argue her into eating. That was very annoying to her. In exasperation I found myself telling her, “Mother, if you don’t eat, you will die.” While that was true in a general sense, I was shocked at how harsh it sounded in the moment,

I saw a couple of interesting questions on the internet: “What do you like to cook, what do you like to eat?” I now realize that I no longer like to cook, not even to bake or roast, which used to give me a delightful sense of accomplishment. Now it hurts to stand at the stove, it aches to work at the sink, and it makes me dizzy to walk around the kitchen. And, those who are my age, whom I might be serving something nice, have age-diminished palates so that they cannot distinguish laboriously prepared home-cooking from prêt a manger, so I may as well serve the ready-made. Sad. What do I like to eat? After the years have taken their toll, texture is about all that is left to me. When I a

I bought a wide-screen television the year that I moved my mother (who had dementia) into my home, and it cost A LOT of $. She loved that big TV but she is passed now. Now I am awake to the fake media, and I want none of it, but if I make a piñata out of my TV, will my money fall out of it? Censorship of American values and awful programs are why I have not watched television for two years now. I do not know what to do with this hunk of junk TV, if I sell it the problem is just perpetuated. I stopped watching TV because the shows and ads were AWFUL. The Main Stream Media cost me time and money that I will never get back. Reparations are due from the MSM for the harm the MSM did to Ameri