And the rest.......

On Saturday, September 2, 1972, Jeanne Clarke Russell married Roy Ervin Pelletier at 11:00 A.M.   High Nuptual  Mass at Saint Francis Roman Catholic Church, New Milfrod, CT, as witnessed by family and friends. A reception followed at 1 P.M. at Post 1672 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall, New Milford, CT......they began their life together at their cottage on Wells Road, New Milford, CT,  after a wonderful  three-week honeymoon to the South/Southwest/Northeast road trip....and the rest, as the saying goes....is history. :-)

July 4th

Happy Fourth of July to all. Who'd of thought /known, on the holiday weekend in 1971, what history was being/would be made? We are truely blessed. God Bless America! Hope you get to see fireworks on July 4th., NOT June 29th.,  June 30th.,  July 3rd.,  or July 7th.  this year. Guess we can't presume there ARE going to be fireworks anymore. It's a shame. We can find money for lots of other town, city, state,  federal things, despite economy.  TV telecasts are nice, but not the same.  Be safe and sound wherever you spend it and say hi for me. xos :-)

Proud

You have three children and a grandchild that you were always and are very proud of. They miss you and so does and Maggie and I. Thanks for keeping such good watch over us too. We hope you know how much you were and are loved. Happy Father's Day.  xos

The Only Thing Different

Sitting on your heels, you'd plant yourself on the worn wooden living room floor--sometimes with your shoes still on, sometimes in your white crew socks--in front of your record player. Your fine dark brown hair would fall down across your forehead as you worked at your task, your glasses slipping down your prominent nose, the one you passed down to me. Your shoulders were a bit hunched as you assessed your loot. Records stacked or sitting up in boxes surrounded you. You sometimes sorted them by artist, but often you just seemed to be on a roll with listening to your favorites or locating all of the different versions of the same song. How can I forget old Rolling Stones followed by the later Patsy Cline? I wonder which version of "I Forget to Remember to Forget" you were searching for, now that I know you loved that tune as a young man.

Your reel-to-reel was next to you sometimes too--when you were searching for a memory that must have popped up in a dream or in some passing thought that startled you into pulling out those square boxes, the discs inside holding hours of notes and voices, some of them homemade. Maybe some of them are the recordings you forced your sisters into, orchestrating from the status of eldest brother, playing a role you weren't sure of in most other settings. Now we know you were also in the Radio Club in high school. I wonder who you talked to the most about music and if you fell in love to certain songs. When I think about all of the questions I have stored up, it seems even less fair that I can't ask them.

The living room floor is refinished and a framed photo of you sits on top of the record player. We still think of you there and it seems impossible that four years have passed without your laughter warming up a room and without your deep voice singing along to your favorite music. Four years is too long to be without you so we try to take you everywhere we go. Music seems to be the best place to find you.

-ATP

O'Pelletier

I will be thinking of you especially on Saturday, Roy O'Pelletier. Ah, yes, and I will be wearing some green too! xos :-)

It's November 18th again...

You would have been 72 today. Each birthday without you here to celebrate it with is stranger than the last, which I didn’t expect. I thought it would become too natural. It hasn’t. Instead, there is quiet where your laugh would have been and there is an empty chair where you’d have sat and devoured a giant piece of chocolate cake tonight. Every year, though, I do learn more about you, Dad. As I’ve talked to other people who love you, I’ve learned more about your tender side and your brave side and your stubborn side, and as we get ready to remember you today, I know we’ll learn even more about you as we reminisce.

It’s not in hearing a story for the first time that you learn it, you know? It’s when you hear it retold that you get it down so that you can retell it in your own voice. Then there are the things you memorized right away—that poem that stuck or that line a lover delivered that will be tattooed on your heart until you’re gone. Then out of the blue, that thing you knew for sure changes without warning. A song I’ve heard 999 times might suddenly sound new because I thought of you when it played that thousandth time. You left behind memories that are so strong they almost bring you back.

I can still hear you singing.

Birdies!

Birdies, birdies, birdies!!!!!!!!!!!! :-) .....at long last. Enjoy them all. The flowers are trying to break through too. Happy Springtime. xos :-)