My grandmother wrote a letter to each of her children almost every day, even when nearly every American home had a telephone. She talked about mundane things and ended  with the pronouncement that she was writing “just to let you know that I am still alive.”

     In May and June, I did a 12-day book tour that included Forest City, Latrobe, and Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and Euclid, Ohio. Only seven people attended in Forest City but the word got around and I had a nice letter from a woman in Arizona who grew up in Forest City and wanted me to send her a signed copy. Even a front-page article in the Latrobe Bulletin pulled only seven people to attend my presentation in the town my family had lived for 60 years. But my grandmother’s next-door neighbor, then a child, now an old man, stopped by to find out who I was (Joe’s daughter) and catch up on the last 50 years. Later, my grandmother’s paper boy sent me an email to tell me what a nice lady she had been. Every week when she paid her bill she gave him a Heath bar. He  still thinks of her  when he eats one. In Canonsburg, 25 people showed up. One person said she chose that weekend to drive from Virginia to see her brother so she could come for my talk.  After I returned to the hotel a man called me, “I realized on my way home that I should have bought another five books to give to my family,” and he drove a half an hour back to get them signed by me. In Euclid 47 people attended. I drove 2,008 miles and spent more than I earned. I was still recovering from the strained ilio-tibial band in my left leg that was a result of operating my clutch pedal in a  two hour stop and go traffic pile up in Western Massachusetts around a flaming car accident, when  a librarian in Ohio asked if I could do a presentation in her town.

     Anyhow, I was committed to being a nurse at a children’s summer camp in Maine for seven weeks. The kids and the lake with a sandy beach were great, but overall, it was too damn hot and a summer full of children’s fare left my gut in ruins and took eight pounds off me.

    Getting old and living in the age of Trump have so many depressing  parallels. I brushed my teeth, flossed, used fluoride and still my tooth cracked and I’m facing my first tooth loss.  I ate well, exercised, went to physical therapy but I still have osteoarthritis and I am looking at a knee replacement. We fought for Voting rights only to have Trump mandate gerrymandering and ban mail-in votes. We fought for a woman’s right to control her body only to have Justice “I like beer” and Justice so-called Catholic Amy Barrett  say, “Oh no! the government owns women’s bodies.” Damn! I’m a Catholic Amy, too, and my catechism said that God created us and gave us the power of Free Will to do good or to do wrong and bear the consequences to God. We fought for racial equal rights and now Trump mandates that history be revised to claim that Slavery was good for Black people and the Civil War was about something else.  And so on and so on— something new and crazier every day.  Today it’s my neck and tomorrow it is my paraspinal muscles.

    So, I continue to hope, sent $20 to the ACLU and $5 to NPR , vote, and pray that it counts. I find it difficult  to write fiction and the truth is too painful.

    On Friday, August 29, 2025 we set out for Slovenia. We have no need to stop in Brussels this year because my 57-year-old cousin Barbara Babič who lived there, died from colon cancer in February. She suffered a lot. We will visit my other relatives and celebrate the birth of their children, enjoy the ambience, the food, and Archie will practice his Slovene with everyone he meets, and perhaps I’ll get an update on the translation prospects for my book. Our daughter, Grace, will join us for a week. She polished the maps and graphics for my book, and saved me every time the computer failed me. Koper will be our base and we will make sure that Grace gets to the must-see places such as Bled and Postojna caves.

    That’s all I have to say right now, I just want you all to know that I am still alive.