Dear Group, Frankly, I'm not healing as quickly or as well as I was hoping for but in these late evening hours I seem to come back to life and in these few precious hours what seems to give me the most pleasure is to remember sweet childhood memories and to write them down. Who knows but what it takes such a shaking up in our lives to realize the value of remembering such things and writing them down. I know that tomorrow I will wake up with the same pain I have had since my surgery and I also know that it will EVENTUALLY go away. And I also know that I'll live happily ever afterwards. Oue parent went through such stuff and so did our grandparents and all the rest of our ancestors. We're all focused on genealogy and we're scattered all over the country and for a lot of us we never had the opportunity to even visit where our ancestors or family lived. But for what it's worth, this is what one kid who grew up in Niagara Falls with Pennsylvania-Dutch roots remembered.. And this is why. Since my surgery, my older sister (Deb's mom who was born in 1926) and I have been in closer contact with each other via email and when she read my memories about the tea party under the spirea bush, she enjoyed it and it brought to her mind . . . well, let me tell it to you in her own words: "I enjoyed your story about the tea party, that was neat. I remember when mother wasn't around we would take the davenport cushions and slide down the stairs, fun wow! My macaroni "soup" is getting cold and it looks like we may have thunder storm so I'll turn off the computer for now but will check it later, Love Sister Norma." Oh my yes! How I DO remember! Now if Norma and I were to talk about those memories in person, I might disagree with her. As I recall, we used the pillows on our beds and we probably would argue over such tiny details. Sisters always do that, you know. But I have an idea that now that we're all grown up, the tiny details don't mean a thing-just sharing the memories. Hey, picture your parents being out for the evening in the 1940s and you and your teenage sister having the run of the house. Your "baby" brother is tucked safely in bed and the two of you girls are tired of listening to "Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy" or "Fibber McGee and Molly' on the radio, you're restless and you want some "action!" So what do you do? Well, you either grab the cushions off the davenport (now known as a sofa) or the pillows off your twin beds, go to the top of the stairs, place the cushions at the very top step, flop down on them head first and then slide down the whole length of the staircase! Bump, Bump, Bump!!! WHEEEEE!! And then you drag the cushions/pillows back up to the top and do it all over again! What made it more exciting was that we both knew that if Mother ever found out, we would have been given a stern lecture about either the danger to ourselves or how it would wear out the cushions/pillows. (tee hee!) Now, to Norma's reference to macaroni "soup." Frankly, I don't know if it was a Pennsylvania-Dutch recipe that our mother learned from her mother or her grandmother or just one that she made up herself during the Depression. But there is nothing as comforting to Norma and me as macaroni "soup." It's a simple recipe that I have the feeling that neither one of us has ever written down. I guess it goes something like this: ¼ pound of bacon sliced up and fried in a frying pan until ALMOST crisp and DON'T drain off a speck of bacon grease! Add a can of tomatoes-nowadays, used the diced tomatoes In the meantime, cook up just the right amount of elbow macaroni to add to the above to made a bit of a soupy mixture-lots of macaroni and lots of tomatoes and bacon. Scoop up a big batch of it into a soup bowl, grab a spoon and just dig in! And if you get bored afterward, just grab a couple of cushions and slide down the stairs head first!! WHEEEEE!!!! Such memories get me through these days--one day at a time. What would I do without all of you to tell you this stuff! luvya, vee