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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

What’s something that our generation had access to that you’d like to bring back?

Rainbow toe socks? NO! The Big Wheel, plastic death tricycle? nah...Penny Loafers with dimes so we could call home? That is getting warmer. The ability to be fully out of touch when you left to go meet someone, until you both actually showed up at the appointed place and the appointed time? Yes. My shoulders drop down from my ears just thinking about that.

What about you?

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Susan Campbell's avatar

The plastic death tricyle! Mine was orange, what color was yours? And remember the spinning, metal death wheels (merry-go-rounds) on the playgrounds? Those large metal discs with "handles" that you'd hang onto for dear life as someone would spin it as fast as possible and you prayed you wouldn't puke or get thrown off? Ah... childhood memories 🩵

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

I loved those merry go rounds where your body was parallel to the ground as you hung on for dear life.

My big whelp was yellow with blue wheels and a blue plastic brake and little storage thingy on the back.

I put my Barbie’s in the back. Plastic wheels spinning in the sand in the driveway. Pulling the handbrake and spinning out.

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Janet Mary Cobb's avatar

Beginning your writing career at 56! My hero! I've been writing work-for-hire and self-publishing blogs and books for years - but just recently decided to attempt seriously submitting to publications. We'll see where it takes me...

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

What sort of work are you writing and submitting? I think abut submitting but haven't made it past the first hurdle...Kind of lame on my part. Maybe it's time to put some more effort into it...Any advice?

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Janet Mary Cobb's avatar

I haven't submitted anything yet, but my first focus will be to food related magazines. I've done a TON of nonprofit related writing as work-for-hire (but not by submission) over the last decade, but this will be a new arena. My first step was to gather a list of publications I want to submit to and follow/subscribe to them all on social media.

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

That makes sense...I would love to have column in my little local paper...I dream about pulling an Erma Bombeck....I love to write with humor. Makes people happy!

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Janet Mary Cobb's avatar

That sounds like fun! I struggle with writing humor but I would love to have a regular opinion piece column about thoughts around current events or something like that.

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

Well, I look forward to reading your latest! Good luck! and thank you for commenting here:)

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Jenny O'Connell's avatar

“Trust in what’s real.” I love this, Catherine Palmer!

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Alisa Kennedy Jones's avatar

I love Catherine’s spirit—and now that I’ve seen her heavenly digs in Vermont, I’m fully in the throes of house envy. I also love that she flat-out rejects all those tired tradwife tropes. She’s not out there churning butter or turning mushrooms into some new firming cream for boobies. (Respect to those who do, but... no, no thank you.) And if she wrote a novel about her adventures with her darling one-eyed cat, well, there's a book deal in there somewhere. I just know it!!!

If I could bring back one thing from the “good old days,” it’d be the single landline on the rotary dial telephone in our house—no answering machine, no voicemail, just a mad hallway dash when it rang and all of us girls yelling, “Telephone! I bet it’s for me!” That, to me, was the original optimism. 😂

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

Oh that is a good one, Alisa! The telephone and the telephone closet! No machine. And huddling in the closet and peaking outside to make sure no one was listening…or what if a boy called?!?! Honey! Telephone! It’s a BOY!!!!! 😍

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Kim Druker Stockwell's avatar

And...I am with you, A about the tradwife in Vermont tropes...Not that there is anything wrong with that but it's just SO MUCH PRESSURE to be so country-perfect. Jeesh.

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