60. Throwback Thursday

At the beginning of the night copy desk's shift, someone plays a song of the night to motivate everyone to vanquish errors and write great headlines, or to comment on the news of the day, or something like that. It's a sweet newsroom tradition. Tonight it was Arkansas native Glen Campbell singing "Gentle on My Mind." His sidekick on his TV show, John Hartford, actually wrote that song, and sang it better, in my opinion. (Oh, did I ever have a crush on John Hartford. Must be the source of my love for the sound of a banjo.)

So tonight's gratitude theme is nostalgia.

1. Remembering the time Mom and I went to a John Hartford concert at Wheeling College, just the two of us.

2. Thinking this might normally be the Thursday night I would have driven up to Branson to spend a long weekend with Dad and my stepmom on their nearly annual fall trip.

3. Remembering the days when a little girl came home from school and then would play school in creative and entertaining ways.

4. Rereading the Narnia books (I'm in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader now) and remembering unwrapping the boxed set for Christmas one year when I was a little girl.

5. Eating a hard-boiled egg mashed with butter, salt and pepper (a favorite childhood breakfast) from one of my grandmother's little Currier & Ives bowls.

What family memories are you grateful for?

Dad and me on a dinner excursion of the Showboat Branson Belle, October 2011.