America's Pastime As you read this, our national pastime -- baseball -- will be getting ready to start the World Series. In fact, the first game of the Series is tonight. This year is the 106th playing of the Fall Classic. The New York Yankees (my second favorite team ever) will play the Philadelphia Phillies in the best-of-seven series. The St. Louis Cardinals -- my favorite team from the Good Old Days -- were eliminated earlier in the month by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League divisional series.
Our December Issue
GRANDMOTHER'S COOKIES
She sifted through family history even as she rolled out the dough.
SHOESTRING CHRISTMAS
You could always count on the five-and-dime when money was tight.
CHRISTMAS IN THE 1950S
Years later, warm memories of Christmases past still enrich the holiday!
SANTA'S ELVES
Daddy always loved holidays, especially Christmas.
Dear Friends of the Good Old Days,
Winter solstice -- the traditional first day of winter -- is December 21, the shortest day of the year (at least for us living in the Northern Hemisphere). The sun, after a six-month trek southward, begins its journey back north, bringing longer days and the promise of spring.
Grandmother's Cookies
Every Christmas season, I make several batches of springerle cookies from my grandmother's recipe and give them as gifts. To my cousins and siblings, these hard, anise-seed cookies embossed with a raised design are known simply as "Grandmother’s cookies."
