Category: Hartford Courant
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‘Is your house on fire, Clark?” “No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.” Every town has one, a Clark Griswold who ambitiously covers his house from one end to the other with holiday lights, blinding the neighbors, and causing local brownouts. But for most of us, it’s just enough to hang a wreath and…
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It’s an unseasonably warm November day in New York. The sky is a resplendent blue and folks strolling past Macy’s in Herald Square seem to be walking a bit slower than usual — to get a peek at the retailer’s holiday window display in its final stages of completion. Inside, oblivious to both the weather…
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Most people are surprised when they learn how close I once came to being a superstar. Of course, looking at me now, it’s probably easier to imagine that I was on the fast track to do something in relativistic quantum field theory or at the very least, multivariable calculus, but, no. I was headed for…
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Twinkling lights, wreaths with big bows, lazy snowflakes and warm candles glowing in windows are what most of us think of when it comes to the holidays in New England. And why not? Of all the places to visit this time of year, none compares with the Northeast’s charming villages and towns, many of which…
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I’ve never really had normal hair. Born with a rare combination of Astro Turf and yarn, it’s not straight, not curly, but instead a perpetually damaged-looking hinterland located somewhere in between. Growing up, I so desperately wanted long, straight hair that in lieu of it I sometimes wore pantyhose on my head. With suntan-colored pigtails…
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Many of us can remember celebrating our 16th birthdays filing paperwork at the Department of Motor Vehicles and leaving with our licenses — or, at the very least, learners’ permits. Those days, however, may well be over. While there are still plenty of teens spending their birthdays at the DMV, an ever-increasing number of them…
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Perched atop a broomstick at the intersection of Essex and Washington streets, Samantha Stephens smiles at passersby, many of whom stop to get a picture with her or come in for a closer look. Cast in bronze, the witch who married a mortal not only attracts fans of the long-running 1960s TV series “Bewitched” but…
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It was just another routine appointment with her gynecologist, until the doctor asked Sharon Flannery how long she’d had the lump in her breast. The West Hartford resident had been good about keeping up with her regular exams and yearly mammograms, so she was surprised. Flannery had no idea it was there. Not long after,…
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Like everybody else, I keep the usual stuff in my dresser. I have a drawer allocated for socks, a drawer for pajamas and even one for my “workout” clothes, an oxymoron since any kind of physical activity is the last thing I do in them. There’s also a drawer for my stash of undergarments. But…
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Poor Marie Antoinette, not only did she end her life at the guillotine, but her lasting legacy is having uttered a phrase that most historians agree she didn’t actually say. Regardless, “Let them eat cake” has been a popular maxim for more than 200 years and for equally as long, if not longer, that’s exactly…
Sarah Lemire 