Helen Remembers:
A picnic at Elephant Rock
By Helen H. Hill
 Probably because of its proximity to the ocean, New England enjoys more ups and downs with its weather than any roller coaster. I remember hot and humid stretches, cool spells and rain for weeks on end. But most of all I remember glorious days with temperatures in the 80s, low humidity and light breezes giving a push to the lush cumulus cloud formations in the skies above us.
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Helen Remembers:
Childhood Games - July 2010
By Helen H. Hill
Early summer was a wonderful time when we were children. School was just out; the days were warm and carefree; and the evenings provided extended daylight until 9 p.m. or later. I remember well that my friends and I played games every night after supper. We didn’t have computers or PlayStations, but we still knew how to create our own fun. We’d much rather be outside in the nice weather than sitting in front of an Emerson TV with a screen that must have been no more than 14 inches (and almost circular in shape).
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Helen Remembers:
The New Bike -
June 2010
By Helen H. Hill
I can remember mother keeping budget envelopes for food, the mortgage, telephone, electric and whatever else. She’d allot so much per envelope for each pay period and then she’d go downtown to pay the bills at the end of the month. In those days, you paid your electric bill at one of the stores downtown. You could pay the mortgage at the bank, the phone bill at another store and so forth. Without a lot of expenses, you really didn’t need a checking account. And credit cards didn’t exist. Department stores had what they called charge plates that were about the size of military dog tags, fit in your wallet and identified you as a charge customer at the point of sale.
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Helen Remembers:
The penny candy store
May 2010
By Helen H. Hill
Sometimes New England gets extremely wet spring seasons. I remember a year when I was around 12 or 13 when it rained for the whole month of May. On one particular Saturday, mother gave each of us 50 cents and told us that we could go to the local movie theater. Our town was small, but we were lucky enough to have our own theater that showed a double feature every Saturday afternoon. My sisters and I donned our rain gear and walked down the hill to the Main Street, two quarters in each of our pockets.
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Helen Remembers:
The forgotten art of letter writing - April 2010
By Helen H. Hill
I went off to summer camp on Cape Anne for a week when I was about 12. I was certain that the friends I made there would last forever. We swam; we sat up late talking and laughing; we took all the same workshops together; we skipped rope; we schemed; and we twirled in the fields until we fell down from dizziness.
At our mid-week carnival, every cabin had to create a booth to entertain the other campers. Some told stories; some performed; and one cabin of boys did a game with beans hidden under paper cups. I’d later remember this game when I saw three-card Monte played on the streets of New York. Our cabin told fortunes. Some of us dressed up in bathrobes with scarves tied around our heads. We borrowed jewelry from everybody so we could look like gypsy fortune tellers. The lights were low and we spoke in solemn tones as we laid out decks of cards in front of us. We gave everybody a good fortune and we didn’t get the giggles until we got back to our cabin. What fun we had!
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Helen Remembers:
Maple Sugaring - March 2010
By Helen H. Hill
When I was child, my family used to visit a local sugar house for an annual breakfast just about late February. The old barn board structure sat close to the main road and was part of an expansive farm of maybe 400 acres. Gnarled maple trees lined the stone walls that surrounded most of the fields and tin collecting pails hung from every one of them.
As we drove into the lot we could already smell the combination of wood smoke and maple-scented steam coming from the narrow chimney at the far end of the shed. We knew that we’d get to see the sap bubbling away in large open pans and we’d all get our fair share of maple syrup.
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Helen Remembers:
Winter Chores - Feb. 2010
By Helen H. Hill
I woke this morning to a kitchen that was nearly dark. A quick look through the frosty windows revealed that the sere winter landscape was transformed overnight into a winter wonderland. The falling snow was thick on branches, railings and pine trees. Even the squirrels seemed to have taken refuge as the storm raged. Not a creature stirred.
After setting a kettle to boil, I poked my head outside to take a deep breath and to survey the six inches that had already fallen. The smell of wood smoke was thick in the air and heavy flakes clung to my hair and shawl. Snow was predicted to continue over the course of the next two days.
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Helen Remembers:
The Talent Show - Jan. 2010
By Helen H. Hill
I got a call from my friend Darlene the other day telling me that Community Auditions was once again on television. Does anybody remember one of the longest running TV shows in history? It ran for 37 years on a local Boston station, and we were glued to the television set every Sunday morning all through the ’60s for this talent show hosted by Gene Burns (and later by Dave Maynard). The set was cheesy, the performers were sometimes so bad they were good, but we liked it because it was local and the contestants were just like you and I.
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