On Apr 3, 2009, at 12:01 PM, David Seidel wrote:
And what about a Green Valley blog? This E-mail is cumbersome.
I agree. Either a group blog or a social network. If it is the first, I'd be happy to set it up, probably in Blogger. Any ideas for names? This time we could probably improve on Green Valley Gazette.
A social network group would also make sense as a way to proceed. I'm on Facebook and several others, but am frankly not a big social networker. So if that's the direction we want to go, someone else should take the lead.
Hi to Davey and our Bay Area Chesley neighbors.
Dan
Thanks for the offer, Dan
ReplyDeleteGreen Valley Gazette sounds good to me; that's what it is, and it's evocative of the original document and the early days on GVD. Other possibilities could incorporate Shady Tree or Around the Bend (I think Nancy already used this). No opinion on the format; I'm untried in both.
Wendy
I thought the Ruby Family Blog was top drawer and I vote for a similiar format. And if Dan is willing to launch, all the better-how can we turn down such an offer?
ReplyDeleteGreen Valley Gang is another option-all the names seem to fit.
PS I still can't believe it when I see "Joanne Ruby" on my email list.
PPS Mr. Seidel has mailed a few more photos, stay tuned
PPSS Mr Seidel also denies putting his running lawn mower underneath Dr. Lewis' window after a late nite party but said maybe it was Alan Fisher!
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ReplyDeleteHere you go, Linda, my email address in your in-box. I've been blown away by all these memories. Not sure where 'Bathtub' came from, can someone help with that? Walt & Dan preferred, Jo-ry-jaggerbush, and Petunia-mic-boing-boing (not sure I've ever spelled that out before), and your mom, Shelley, insisted on calling me 'Jodie' (do you remember that?)
ReplyDeleteWalter beat me to it, asking for clarification of these two amazing marriages. Wow. Really makes me think how we may have turned out had we stayed on GVD with all of you hooligans and love-birds.... but despite the separation of 45 years, can that even be???, here we are, all tied up together. I agree, John, it is a good bit for a social scientist, and a much more interesting thesis than Secaucus 7 or The Big Chill. So the blog will for sure have all kinds of potential....(I'm on my way to my 'memory box' where I'm pretty sure I'll find a going- away autograph book.) What about "Comin' Around the Bend - Again" (with permission from Nancy). That sure resonates for me: I can't imagine just how many times we spoke those words, and now we get to do it again.
Its really interesting b/c for a while Walter really hoped we could pull stuff together from our GVD days for our Family History Blog and we never did. We were of course thinking more about Stan & Helga's contemporaries, your parents. But now here it is. What's also striking me is that our father had gotten this period all wrong for a long time, til I straightened him out before he died. He somehow thought that he had deprived us of culture and art, by putting us in Glenshaw on a dead-end road. Even though he loved the farm and woods and animals I'm sure as much as we did, he somehow thought we were lacking, or that he should be doing/ giving us more. I always thought it was interesting to know that my father had that same parental angst that we all have. Just so glad I managed to convince him that he did it SO right. Just wish he were here now to read all this, and know just how right it was.
will hook up w/ Dan this weekend, and see where we go....
-Joanne
Hi, Joanne! As I recall, your middle name is Beth. And I do remember you proudly telling people ( meaning us kids) your name was Joanne Bathtub Ruby. You and we all thought it was hilarious. Perhaps you and Helga or Stan or one of your grandmothers (I remember meeting both of them) came up with it while you were taking a bath? In any case I remember it as light-hearted.
ReplyDeleteAs I read through all these memories what strikes me is how much freedom we all had and how much we had to stretch our imaginations in that dead-end street environment. Sometimes our imaginations got overheated-- we were SURE we were finding evidence of a crime, desperate to be Trixie Belden or, later, Harriet the spy--but doesn't a great imagination enhance your appreciation for art and literature? My daughter was very familiar with the Metropolitan Museum of Art by the age of 6, having spent many cold afternoons in there (too cold to play in Central Park), but I don't think she had as much fun as we did! Plus, we all had ballet lessons, right? Your comments about our parents' parental angst were right on target.
All the best,
Wendy
Joanne - your middle initial is "B"? At one time you told me your middle name was Bathtub. If you have any questions about our parents, I'm sure we'd all be glad to help with that. Don & Pat Seidel, and Jackie Fisher are still living on Green Valley Drive, as is Bill's step-mother.
ReplyDelete-Ellen
Hey Bathtub, Shessy, "Martha," and everyone else, I vote for Green Valley Gazette, seems the most historic and all-inclusive.
ReplyDeleteHere's a funny story: my girls, too, went through a "Harriet the Spy" period. One Sunday Lily took her Spy Notebook to church and sat writing her suspicions about all the adults around her. I saw another adult, on her other side, reading over Lily's shoulder and trying to contain her chuckles during the service. If any of you remember our Aunty and Grammy from Brooklyn, my daughter is named after my Aunty. Pronounced like "awful," not the usual "Anty." I remember most of your grandparents, at least stories of Nana T, Joanne am I right your grandmother would put nail polish on your fingernails? And Shelly's lovely grandmother, so lovely, so kind, so happy.
On a more serious note, in retrospect, Rubys, I have been thinking it seems odd that your family put up a "Hanukkah Bush" at that time, let you participate in the customs of all the Christian families around you. With your mother's history, wasn't that tough for Helga and her mother?
That was such a lovely place, the woods and the farm are imprinted in my mind and always will be. More importantly, I learned so much from all of you and your families. Ellen and Nancy, I have tried, and mostly failed, to adopt your mother's habit of writing out her dinners for the week in advance, and being so prepared.
All the best,
Meags
Re our Chanukah bush, it was actually a full-fledged Christmas tree. It was indeed a little strange for our mother, but my father's father, Walter Ruby (you can read about him on the Ruby family history) blog had already begun celebrating Christmas in the 1930's when our father Stan was growing up, so Stan loved Christmas and was happy to share it with his kids. Walter was born in a very Orthodox jewish family in NY in 1893, but broke with all of that and became a self-made millionaire in the liquor business before and after Prohiobition (among other things, he invented the rum and coke) who not only celebrated Christmas but ate pork and shellfish as well. However, he also was one of the machers (big shots) at his synagogue in Long Beach, NY and Stan had a bar mitzvah. Intersting dichotomies, to be sure. When we got older, in our teens in Glen Ellyn, Helga did start objecting to having an X-Mas tree, which, I think was especially hard on Joanne who was the youngest...
ReplyDeleteWalter