The Blaisdell Blog

Here is the unvarnished truth.   If you are comfortable inside your own skin and like the person you are, it shows.   People respond to what you feel more than what they see.   I like who I am.   In my mind, I’m Marilyn Monroe so it is always jarring when I see a picture of myself and the person looking back at me is more like Angela Lansbury!   [Not that she wasn’t a saucy little number in her day!]               Even at 70 years old there are times when I like to strut a little.   I put on a cocktail dress, three inch heels and feel just plain foxy.   Of course, any heads I turn are much older and grayer than they used to be, but I’m okay with that—I’ve always liked older men!               However it seems that our society has entered into a relentlessly joyless phase.   The minute something is totally smile-worthy, the happiness police step in.   Here is the 21 st century version of the Puritans.   NO RED PETTICOATS!            The Washington Post decided to rain on my

On April 16, 1846, nine covered wagons left Springfield, Illinois on the 2500 mile trek to California.   Almost half of the 87 men, women and children of the Donner-Reed party were doomed before the first revolution of the wheels.   The group of emigrants was led by James Fraser Reed.   He was influenced in his decisions by a book, The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, written by Landsford W. Hastings.   The book touted a new route, referred to as the, “Hastings’ Cutoff.”   This route was supposed to save almost 400 miles and be over easy terrain.   In fact, the route had never been traveled, by Hastings.   His book was a fraud—a moral if not a legal crime—and he misled his readers intentionally.               Certainly, some of the blame falls on Donner and Reed.   Common sense should tell us that a route 400 miles shorter and easier than the one currently being used would be the rule, rather than the exception.               When the group arrived in Ft. Laramie,

My first dog was a Norwegian elkhound.   I was in second grade when my folks brought Torgy home.   We lived in Minnesota, which is a good place for an elkhound.   They are Nordic dogs of medium sized, square in shape with a thick outer coat of silver gray and an undercoat of white.   Their tail curls over their back, the muzzle is short and wolfish with a black mask. They are smart, loyal, brave, family loving and given to roam.   This is a dog who thinks his “yard” is the distance he can cover in a day and still make it home to his dog dish by dark.   You cannot contain them.             My second dog was a child loving white German shepherd.   He was quite large but did not have an aggressive bone in his body, until a stranger entered our house.   My husband’s co-worker had come to the door while I was on the phone and I had waived him in.   [That was when a telephone was attached to a wall!]   My four-year-old daughter saw a stranger come in the house and started to cry. The