March 23, 2014
From Meet Your Neighbor by Joan Mahoney, Linden Ponds Journalist:
For Linden Ponds newcomer Barbara Malley (MG 207), the day starts at her computer. That's when she checks her blog, the ongoing conversation she has with the world around her about her adventures, her family, her writing, her good times, and, yes, her bad times, too. She shares them all with her readers.
Sometimes, there's silence. But she knows that people read her entries, because according to her statistics, she's had visitors not only from America but also from Russia, Germany, England, France, Poland and other faraway spots. These days, she's writing about her move to Linden Ponds, a choice she made as problems with walking and eyesight slowed her down physically, though her taste for a challenging hand at duplicate bridge hasn't changed.
She's been a writer since she was a teenager in Newton, and now she's 92. The writing started with a diary, grew after her marriage into a series of letters to her mother (who kept the young wife's stories about her growing family of four and returned them to her in batches), and blossomed into a profession.
"My mother inspired me," Barbara says, and the family's adventures provided plenty of material for articles in sports-oriented magazines, including tales of a capsized cruiser and a plane crash. Barbara, her husband, two sons and two daughters, in the years they lived in Cohasset, were sailors, and the captain's mate wrote for "Yachting" and "Motor Boating" magazines. Then they took up flying, and her articles were contributed to "Flying" and "Air Progress".
Those magazines are gone now, and she misses them. But she has more than memories -- she treasures a series of cartoons drawn by artist Darrell McClure to illustrate her stories, depicting some of the mishaps she and her husband encountered in their venturesome years at sea and in the sky.
Her marriage ended, but the writing didn't. In 1991, Little, Brown published her book which is described on the flyleaf as "the courtship, marriage, divorce and courtship again and the couple's lasting friendship." The title: "Take My Ex-Husband Please -- But Not Too Far." Much of the memoir is light-hearted, but it isn't all laughs.
Two beloved daughters, Kathie and Vonnie, were involved in automobile accidents. Kathie, since the age of 25, has been in a wheelchair, though she overcame her disabilities to earn a Ph.D. Today she is an award-winning professor of psychology at Boston University, where she is also known for her work for world peace. Her sister Vonnie did not survive her accident.
Here at Linden Ponds, Barbara is close to Kathie and to her sons, Ted and Tim. She's looking forward to LP activities and new friends. And keeping up on her blog [tearsandlaughterat90] with lively accounts of past adventures and new challenges.
From Meet Your Neighbor by Joan Mahoney, Linden Ponds Journalist:
For Linden Ponds newcomer Barbara Malley (MG 207), the day starts at her computer. That's when she checks her blog, the ongoing conversation she has with the world around her about her adventures, her family, her writing, her good times, and, yes, her bad times, too. She shares them all with her readers.
Sometimes, there's silence. But she knows that people read her entries, because according to her statistics, she's had visitors not only from America but also from Russia, Germany, England, France, Poland and other faraway spots. These days, she's writing about her move to Linden Ponds, a choice she made as problems with walking and eyesight slowed her down physically, though her taste for a challenging hand at duplicate bridge hasn't changed.
She's been a writer since she was a teenager in Newton, and now she's 92. The writing started with a diary, grew after her marriage into a series of letters to her mother (who kept the young wife's stories about her growing family of four and returned them to her in batches), and blossomed into a profession.
"My mother inspired me," Barbara says, and the family's adventures provided plenty of material for articles in sports-oriented magazines, including tales of a capsized cruiser and a plane crash. Barbara, her husband, two sons and two daughters, in the years they lived in Cohasset, were sailors, and the captain's mate wrote for "Yachting" and "Motor Boating" magazines. Then they took up flying, and her articles were contributed to "Flying" and "Air Progress".
Those magazines are gone now, and she misses them. But she has more than memories -- she treasures a series of cartoons drawn by artist Darrell McClure to illustrate her stories, depicting some of the mishaps she and her husband encountered in their venturesome years at sea and in the sky.
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| DO ANYTHING YOU LIKE," HE SAID. "I'M JUST ALONG FOR THE RIDE." |
Two beloved daughters, Kathie and Vonnie, were involved in automobile accidents. Kathie, since the age of 25, has been in a wheelchair, though she overcame her disabilities to earn a Ph.D. Today she is an award-winning professor of psychology at Boston University, where she is also known for her work for world peace. Her sister Vonnie did not survive her accident.
Here at Linden Ponds, Barbara is close to Kathie and to her sons, Ted and Tim. She's looking forward to LP activities and new friends. And keeping up on her blog [tearsandlaughterat90] with lively accounts of past adventures and new challenges.
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