Fifty three years ago today my parents were married. They went to a place in the Poconos called Split Rock Lodge for their honeymoon. I've been thinking about them all week, not so much about the wedding, although the details of that slowly creep in (my mother's dress was made of something called candlelight satin, the bridesmaids wore dark green velvet and carried poinsettias, and the necklace and bracelet my grandmother wore to her daughter's wedding are in my jewelry box). I've been thinking more about the days leading up the wedding - that sense of anticipation, of all the planning that would culminate in the ceremony at the Methodist church (which taught my mother that dancing and playing cards were sins, causing her to rebel to the point of considering converting to Judaism). My mother died when I was 18; I never had the chance to ask her about her wedding or how she planned it or what the ceremony was like. The few scraps of information I recall are disjointed and don't really form a complete picture. My sister is more of a family historian than I am, so perhaps she has better recall of our parents' early life together.

Books: A Whole World of Trouble by Helen Chappell. Set on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a movie-of-the-week quality story with not quite a plot, not quite enough character development, not nearly enough romantic substance. A step above a literary Twinkie, but only to the level of an Entenmann's cheese danish.