By Madeleine Johnson | November 13th, 2023 | “Notebook” n old friend recently filled me in on the details of a circle of friends and acquaintances that goes back a few decades. It was what you’d expect from people in their sixties; children married, deaths and health issues. A few years ago, divorce would have been in the mix. Instead, there was a new category. … Continue reading Divorce or un-divorce?

By Madeleine Johnson | September 18th, 2023 | “Notebook” have spent the summer in my New England outpost, where it has rained so much that my yard has been invaded by very large mushrooms and very tiny toads. With similar intensity, my news feed filled with catastrophic stories about traveling in Italy; wildfires, tourist vandalism, otherworldly heat, airline foul ups. There was also a rash … Continue reading Try this at home

By Madeleine Johnson | July 24th, 2023 | “Notebook” My father was born in 1918. That birthdate put him squarely in what journalist Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. These were the everyday heroes who as young adults survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought the Second World War (never mind that their parents also survived the same depression and had their own … Continue reading Dad’s heroes

By Madeleine Johnson | April 6th, 2023 | “Notebook” “And he will avail.” In this sentence about the outcome of a plot, the writer confused “avail” with “prevail.” The Upper Midwest, according to the New York Times is “buffeted from sea-level rise.” Perhaps just a typo, but someone failed to see it was exactly the opposite of “buffered.” “Not everyone has the stomach to trawl through the … Continue reading The New Mrs. Malaprop

By Madeleine Johnson | February 6th, 2023 | “Notebook” have just spent the last few days reading the letters my mother’s brother, Norman R. Long, wrote when he was a soldier in the U.S. army. It was 1943 when he entered the war and November 1945 when he was discharged. Norman was just a few years into his studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut … Continue reading Two Battles of the Bulge

By Madeleine Johnson | September 22nd, 2022 | “Notebook” It was not my express intention, but during my travels this summer I saw a lot of naked male flesh. When they say “travel broadens the mind,” I don’t think they mean the misshapen hairy male legs, the knobby, fungus-colored feet, and wobbly, wrinkled necks that I walked among or sat next to in European airports … Continue reading Bare male flesh

By Madeleine Johnson | July 3rd, 2022 | “Notebook” For a long time I have felt called to write about Jhumpa Lahiri, the London-born author of Indian descent, whose novels and stories I have always read with great enthusiasm. In her novels, “Interpreter of Maladies” (1999), “Unaccustomed Earth” (2008), and “The Namesake” (2003) Lahiri examines matters of identity, family, and culture. While not an immigrant … Continue reading Tale of two authors

By Madeleine Johnson | April 12th, 2022 | “Notebook” For the last few days, my ears have been buzzing with a snippet of elevator-style synthesizer music. It’s short and cheesy and surprisingly cheering. It’s the theme music from the Italian television show “Don Matteo.” The show, now entering its final season after twenty years, has been an Italian hit for years. It is currently available … Continue reading Goodbye, Don Matteo

By Madeleine Johnson | March 19th, 2022 | “Notebook”, Memory Lane If I simply wrote about the ways that my parents embarrassed me, I would no longer struggle to find a monthly topic for this column. Neverending were my parents’ constant affronts to the expected norms of upper-class professionals, from my father’s driving a beat-up Volkswagen instead of a nicer car to my mother’s talking … Continue reading Shovel and broom

By Madeleine Johnson | February 18th, 2022 | “Notebook” Two dates are painted by hand on a weathered New England barn near me, and together they sum up something I have been thinking and wanting to write about for some time. The dates are: 9/11/01 and 12/7/41. The first of course is the date of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, which … Continue reading How one war’s legacy endures