Barb Lockard

A tribute to candy that never made it past Easter Sunday As kids, we learned the Easter season combines everything that Catholics love. Heralded in by 40 days of guilt and sacrifice (Never enough! Never enough!), the Sunday holy day is positively decadent. First, there’s the enormous basket of usually-forbidden sweets. There is no weeping Early on, we knew that a loaded basket was really payment for weeks of abstaining from anything enjoyable....

May All Your Easter Grass be Good Stuff! A tribute to candy that never made it past Easter Sunday As kids, we learned the Easter season combines everything that Catholics love. Heralded in by 40 days of guilt and sacrifice (Never enough! …

The 1950s, when no upstanding homemaker would send her man to the office looking like a prune! My mother weaponized the steam iron. Convinced that ironing was an art, she believed that she alone was DaVinci. Dependent on our own ironing talent, we would have quickly entered the ranks of the puckered bodice and bent collar. Better to stay on Mom’s good side and be able to pull a freshly pressed white blouse out of the closet or grab a smooth, shiny handkerchief from a drawer and avoid embarrassment....

Wrinkled Shirt = Bad Wife The 1950s, when no upstanding homemaker would send her man to the office looking like a prune! My mother weaponized the steam iron.  Convinced that ironing was an art, she believed that she al…

Mom had a quirky view of life, and her maxims reflected this! Don’t get me wrong. My mother wasn’t on a level with Socrates, or even Lil’ Nas X, but she did have some homespun wisdom that elevated her to the rank of amateur philosopher, if not yenta. Mom regularly encouraged us to date above our class. . . I can still see it....

Mom’s Advice: Love a Rich Man and Don’t Drive at Five Mom had a quirky view of life, and her maxims reflected this! Don’t get me wrong.  My mother wasn’t on a level with Socrates, or even Lil’ Nas X, but she did have some homespun wisdom that ele…

The Church kept putting us in veils, but there were no grooms in the picture. I want to report a case of election fraud. No, this doesn’t involve the infamous presidential election of 2020, but rather an obscure event that took place in 1969. At my high school, the transition from winter to spring was […]...

Here Comes the Bride . . . Sort of! Visit the post for more.

Friday shopping excursions – a combination of summer fun and motion sickness Mom planned her Friday “errands” with the precision of an air traffic controller. Summers were more difficult since she had to drag two unwilling passengers along (Karen and me). Hard to imagine a time when it took all day, a tank of gas and lots of shoe leather to collect necessities for the coming week. ...

TGIF 1950s Style! Friday shopping excursions – a combination of summer fun and motion sickness Mom planned her Friday “errands” with the precision of an air traffic controller. Summers were more difficult since she…

Step right up and get yourself a child! The Catholic Church loves numbers; whether it’s how many days a sinner earns in Purgatory, or how many times a third-grader can say, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” in an hour. The Catholic hierarchy were lovers of big data before big data existed. Missionaries didn't come cheap, so every classroom had a repository that held money "for the missions."...

Moneyball and Pagan Babies Step right up and get yourself a child!  The Catholic Church loves numbers; whether it’s how many days a sinner earns in Purgatory, or how many times a third-grader can say, “Jesus, Mary and J…

Part II: The Awakening (When last we left our merry band of Ohio travelers, they had arrived exhausted at their motel in Anaheim, facing a morning trip to Disneyland). I got the news as I sat eating toaster waffles in the small motel lobby. Apparently, there was only ONE shuttle to Disneyland and it was leaving in 30 minutes. So much for leisurely stuffing backpacks with all those hard-won Disney essentials....

Disneyland – More Fun Than a Bump in the Road? Part II: The Awakening (When last we left our merry band of Ohio travelers, they had arrived exhausted at their motel in Anaheim, facing a morning trip to Disneyland). I got the news as I sat eatin…