(un)published

By Catherine Carroll,  February 27, 2023. Word count: 2,995 On the last Friday evening of 2022, I was on the PBS NewHour’s website watching the video of their long-time anchor Judy Woodruff’s departure speech.  I got distracted by a headline to the right of the video:  Influential people we said goodbye to in 2022 | PBS NewsHour .  I read the introduction and then scrolled through the months.  When I got to September I paused at Queen Elizabeth and then continued slowly.   Wait.  Hilary Mantel’s name is not on their list!  I knew exactly when she died, two weeks after the Queen.  I scrolled through again, more slowly, looking for an error.  The list of those who died in 2022 was long.  Many names were quite obscure although, no doubt, these people had done important things.   Incredibly, Hilary Mantel’s name was not on the NewsHours list.  I sent an email to the NewsHour expressing my dismay in their omission and received...

By Catherine Carroll, J anuary 31, 2022. Word count approximately 4,646 My house, in the midwest rust belt, was built in 1942.  It’s a very basic house;  brick exterior,  plaster walls, hardwood floors and small.  Less than 900 square feet.  This gives me a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, one bathroom and an unfinished basement. It’s a duplex with a cinderblock wall between my home and my neighbor's home.  Enough to make some Manhattanites envious perhaps, but overall an undesirable style of house in this part of the country.  Nevertheless, it’s a good house for me.  My neighborhood has sidewalks, mature landscaping and, in good weather, people out riding bikes, exercising, walking their kids and dogs -l the kinds of things one thinks of for a desirable neighborhood atmosphere. In the sixteen years I’ve lived here I have done my fair share of home improvements.  New copper plumbing, new furnace, new kitchen, three new hot wa...