Small Town Therapist on the 4th of July Parade

Come join the Democrats in the 4th of July Parade!  Here are some old pictures of the past 4th celebration. Our dance troupe won first prize.

The real name was "We've Got Balls" dance troupe

The glory of our enthusiastic, proud Americans

Ok, we didn't always pick the winner but always had fun

The details will come on 3rd of July. By that time we will know when and where to line up for the parade. Please let me know if you can march with us. Just reply below or leave me a message. 

Thanks!

SMALL TOWN THERAPIST ON FAMILY AND SAVED LETTERS

 

Zach can be fun, at our Mom's Memorial

Zach's family ten years ago

The letters in my files were from the sons who were starting their lives after college. Our oldest son, Zach was a man of few words. During college in one letter he requested funds for something he was interested in doing. After the request for money he said, "I realize that you'd like to hear more but..." So be it. It made me chuckle. Zach, since that era, has frequently written very lovely cards for mother's day, father's day and birthdays to me and my husband. Always a treat.

Josh, years ago, holding his newborn son

Our son Josh went fishing in Alaska after college and vividly described the beauty and many experiences that fishers have. In one adventure, he was wrestling with 60 pound salmon in precarious weather. He described other indelible scenes like fishing with humpback whales for company. Other  stories were tales of his travels after college. Josh reported absolutely hair raising events---like the mother-shocking-incidents he described in Greece, involving a huge motorcycle he rented. He took to riding around the twisty, dangerous Greek roads at top speed. He was 6,000 miles away and there was nothing we could do about our terror here at home. Besides, by the time the letters arrived, he was on to his next adventure. 

The award for most letters written to me were the tender, love filled letters written by my mother and when he retired also from my dad. Interestingly, mom in real life was not all that demonstrative or cuddly, but on paper she would express her deep feelings, love, encouragement and sometimes fears for me. Our mother was widowed at 65 years and the shock reverberated off the page of how she was left to forge ahead after their 44 years marriage. I felt saddened yet honored to receive her outpourings of grief. Now I know how truly young 65 was and discovered how loving and tender was her relationship to my father. Interestingly, mom became much more fun to be around after she picked herself up from the hard work of grieving. She then became the funny, outspoken woman she always was. Turns out she was overshadowed by my very charismatic father.

WWII airplanes in New Orleans museum

Sally's and Trisha's packets of letters that they took home after Mom's memorial, contained the letters written in WWII from our Dad to our Mom. They were filled with his passionate love and longing for our mother. Dad was stationed in the "worst theater in the Pacific---Okinawa." He never let on that this was his nightmare experience. Instead he told us far fetched tales. He claimed he "dug latrines for two years." Instead of depression, fear and anguish, his letters were filled with humorous incidences and the comical people he'd met in the Navy. My father and mother were truly just a little bit affectionate and never overtly demonstrative with their love in front of us. What a treat it was for all of us to hear how deeply smitten Dad was for our mother! Oh, how our mother cherished those letters. And now we get to be delighted with these hand written missives.

The sisters

My sisters have been well represented in these folders, with years of outpouring of love and affection. You should envy me for having such talented, smart and devoted sisters. All of us have written many songs and two of us have written books, soon to be three of us. Especially in our early twenties and thirties when raising out children we would reach out by mail. Many of you will laugh at this but back in the day the telephone was a luxury and a call expensive to those who didn't have fortunes. Letters were a necessity if you wanted to keep in touch. And oh the tales and surprises and grief and joy that would come  in an envelope. My sisters most lovingly expressed their thoughts on what was current in their lives. The best ones were funny, and always loving, supportive and complementary. I do love these sisters.

My Niece, my sister missing from the above picture, my nephew, and three grandnieces

Among the letters to my husband and I, were from our lovely niece. These letters described her family of four's adventures in Taiwan. We missed this little family and especially the little girls. It was delightful to reread them all. We were overjoyed when the Hu McClure family decided to settle on our island. Great company! 

Granddaughter holding a letter

Friends enjoying a letter

I cherish so many of these letters that I can today hold in my hand and laugh or weep over. It's both touching and beautiful. I have decided to start writing letters to my family once a month just because. I'm hoping some of these letters will be eventually meaningful for them. If I hear back that's fine but what I truly desire is that my family gets to hold something in their hand that pours forth my love.  These real feelings just aren't the same when expressed in an email or text. It takes a piece of paper to make it literally more tangible and enduring.

Give the old lady a thrill, write
 

susansmagicfeather 2026 Susan R. Grout

SMALL TOWN THERAPIST ON RAISING SONS

The best letter writer by far was my mom

 I found this old blog post that I'd never finished. It inspired me to write. It also started me on the road to purging some old files.  Ah, but I'm sentimentalist and saved many letters and cards from my entire family for many moons. I'm not alone in this project. My mom was a secret sentimentalist and saved our drawings and some of my letters from camp at Lake Windego. "Dear Mom, all the other kids get letters every day and I get none! Write soon..." Okay, I was 10 years old and, in her defense, she had five kids at home.

After she died in 2010,  we had a grand memorial. Rather than sitting around, my siblings and I cleaned up her "aerie." We found so many little treasures and a vast amount of letters she saved. We decided to split up the many letters and each of us six kids took home a packet that contained letters, drawings and pictures. Our job was to read, or save, or toss.

For the past several hours I've had the pleasure and privilege of going through three big files of family letters, including my share of the packet of letters that mom saved. Reading these treasures from our families' combined history found me sometime in tears, sometimes laughing. Truly, most of the time I spent thinking about the family member and then missing the authors of these delightful missives. In my packet there were letters to my mom filled with gratitude from all of us. We told tales of ordinary life pleasures, like the joy of raising little ones, perils of raising sons, the funny things that small children do and the delightful events of celebrated holidays when we siblings and our families would get together. For many years, none of my siblings and I had much money and we lived great distances apart. So those letters back and forth were cherished.

The favorite letter that my mom saved from me was written in the '80's. I had to read it aloud to my husband who needed to share in the... joy? From the letter:

My mentor Laurie and I were asked to speak at conference in Victoria on the subject of 'Children of Alcoholics.' This was quite a thrill and we got a stand ovation. That was about all we got for our speech...except, they paid for our hotel rooms. Laurie took her son Tyghe and I had Zach and Josh with me, the boys got their own room. Since we were going to be without a car, we asked to stay in Victoria proper, and oh, was that a mistake. We were right in the thick of the bar district during the full moon and the day the unemployment checks came in the mail. Grown men howled from 10pm until 2am, revved their cars and had fist fights approximately right under our window.  At about 1 a.m. I hear this drunk yelling up "jump! jump!" and piercing the night, over the din below comes a recognizable voice saying, "How much will you give me?" It was Joshua. I furious and indignant. I leapt out of bed, rushed down to the boys room to find him leaning out the window, pleasantly bantering with the scene below. Naturally I lost it, and growled all kinds of reproachment to the boy. His reply? "You didn't say we couldn't." True, one doesn't think to tell the children, "Now don't yell out the window to the drunks..."

The next day when I was only slightly less angry I said to Josh, "If you think I got angry last night imagine what your Dad would have done." To which  he answered, adding insult to injury, "If Dad was here I never would have done it."

Several paragraphs later in the letter: "We are now well and fine. However, Thursday night Zach was jumping on a trampoline and hurt himself badly enough that he had trouble driving home. I put him in a hot bath...and he almost passed out. Our neighbor (he's an EMT) came over on his tractor and said he couldn't see any damage but we decided to take Zach to the doctor the next day. Meanwhile Dick is picking up Josh and his friend from school. When driving down the road, suddenly a shot rings out. The rear passenger window is shot out and Josh starts yelling in pain. D not knowing what's going on, turns the car around and roars to the Sheriff's department. Fortunately Josh is more scared than hurt, but the window crumbles, as temper glass will, and falls into our brand new car. Josh had quite the bruise and fortunately we were taking Josh to an Orthopedist the next day for his knees.  After the cortisone shots in his knees, I had Dr. Woo look at the pellet bruise on his back and while he was at it, examine Zach's muscle on his back. Pellet wound for Josh and pulled muscle for Zach. Quite sincerely at the end of the doctor visit, Dr. Woo looks and me and says, "You don't have any more sons I hope."

Happily our sons matured and through the years we've gotten many wonderful cards, phone calls and even letters that I cherish from our sons.

I have an idea, would you consider indulging me and writing any funny stories of raising your sons or daughters. I'd love it and believe everyone needs a good laugh.

Give the old lady a thrill, write 

susansmagicfeather 2026