Month: June 2026

Travel – Barack Obama Presidential Library

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In my lifetime, there has never been anybody like President Barack Obama. His very presidency was symbolic, and I feel privileged to have witnessed it. His presidential library opens today in Chicago, Illinois. Choosing  Juneteenth I’m sure was no accident, and since it’s a federal holiday, today would be a good time to take a few days off, head to Chicago and visit the library of the first Black President.

Visit the website for a look back at the Obama Presidency Timeline.

Visit the library and Obama Presidential Campus in person:

The library is located on a 19.3 acre campus on the South Side of Chicago in historic Jackson Park. Directions.

There are many things to do there that do not cost admission:

  • Original works of art
  • Gardens and plazas, including the Women’s Garden, the Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden, and the John Lewis Plaza.
  • Nature walks
  • Playground
  • Newest branch of the Chicago Public Library
  • Cafe, Restaurant, and Picnic Area plus a store.

There will be programs and tours throughout the year that may require registration or tickets. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Admission to the museum is about $30 for adults for timed tickets or walk the grounds; the campus is open daily, free of charge.

Plan your visit here.

Travel – Grant Cottage

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Frederick Douglass Remembers Ulysses S. Grant

Tomorrow, in commemoration of Juneteenth, historical interpreter Nathan M. Richardson brings his portrayal of abolitionist Frederick Douglass to Grant Cottage in Wilton, New York in a conversation about Ulysses S. Grant.

I visited the cottage a few years ago, and it was hands down the best historical site tour I’ve ever been on. I am looking forward to this event, which will be held tomorrow, from 1 to 2pm.

All Grant Cottage programs are free and open to the public and donations are greatly appreciated.

Directions:

  • From the South:
  • Take the Adirondack Northway (I-87) north to exit 16 toward Ballard Rd/Wilton/Corinth.
  • Turn left ojnto Ballard Rd. (CR-33) toward Wilton/Corinth.
  • Go for about 1 1/2 miles.
  • Continue on Corinth Mountain Rd (CR-33).
  • Turn right onto Parkhurst Rd. Continue on Mt. McGregor Rd. The cottage is almost two miles.
  • GPS address: 1000 Mt. McGregor Rd., Wilton, NY 12831

See you there!

Jane Yolen (1939-2026)

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Jane Yolen has died. In my recent writing classes I always shared a handout on creativity by Jane Yolen. The way I found out that she died was on Threads from the granddaughter of Owl Moon illustrator John Schoenherr in a beautiful tribute that included some of her memories of the book. It was so sad and yet a beautiful way to have discovered this loss that affects not only the book world but the entire world.

The author of over 400 books in many different genres, Jane will be deeply missed.

Jane Yolen’s website

Write every day. You don’t have to write about anything specific, but you should exercise your writing muscle constantly.

Jane Yolen’s For Writers

I simply have a passion for writing, and I do it with joy

Anne Frank

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I grew up in a Jewish household in a Jewish neighborhood visiting grandmothers and cousins and observing holidays with the typical complaints of a child with too much energy to sit still and do nothing while the parents were at temple. We were often told to quiet it down while all of the kids were doing their best (or not so best) in the temple parking lot. I can still feel the heat on my face that came up from the asphalt even on these early fall days. These were my formative years. I lived this way in Queens, New York until I was ten, almost eleven when we moved to Long Island, which was different as night was to day.

While we moved east, my cousins moved south to Florida, and while we wrote often, we were bereft [th] of each other’s company which had been constant practically since I was born. My grandmother was their aunt, and my Bubbe (great-grandmother) was their grandmother. My new neighborhood was more diverse than Bayside’s Oakland Gardens, although our immediate neighbor was Jewish and he had a mixed accent of Eastern European and the Yiddish language. We traveled into Queens to see my grandmother, and into the Bronx to visit my uncle.

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Friday Food – An Inspiration

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Strawberry Festivals

While I know something of Native American culture, in writing my current book, I’ve discovered so much more, and it excites and inspires me. June is an important month in the Native American calendar, especially for the Haudenosaunee, as it is the season of strawberries. In addition to the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash), strawberries are a significant part of the culture, food source, and creation story. They are the first fruits of spring, and a leader of the berries. They are singled out for thanksgiving in the welcoming address before ceremonies.

Strawberries are sweet and tart, red and juicy. They can be enjoyed on their own or in other foods, mixed into salads, pureed into ice cream or yogurt, sat atop cakes or baked right in. They are refreshing and if you’re lucky, plentiful in June.

There are two Strawberry Festivals that you should know about happening in the next few weeks:

The 33rd Annual Strawberry Festival at the Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community west of Fonda, New York on Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28, and

The 11th Annual Kahnawa:ke Strawberry Food Fest just over the border in Kahnawake, Quebec, in southern Canada on Saturday, June 20, 2026.

Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community
Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada

Both events are filled with strawberry goodness, Haudenosaunee Mohawk culture, Native music and dancers, and much more! Check their flyers and websites for admission prices.

If you are in Fonda, stop by up the road and visit the St. Kateri Tekakwitha: National Shrine & Historic Site, celebrating the 350th anniversary of St. Kateri’s baptism on the site. She is the first North American Native Saint canonized by the Catholic Church.

If you decide on Kahnawake, don’t forget your passport for the border! You can also visit the Canadian National Shrine for St. Kateri where her relics are entombed. Contact the Kahnawake Tourism also to set up a tour of the village which sits on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Mental Health Monday – 250

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Stuck between the idea and an ideal, somehow despite the advantages and privilege still remains elusive. I’m talking about our country, the United States, the great democratic experiment. It has never been perfect, and it has been idealized by the patriarchal class. It began, and remains today in many places and situations, with white men, landowners with money, wifely support, servants and slaves. That slavery was written into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, an irony and a tragedy if ever there was one. In thirty-four days is a celebration that I would normally be looking forward to, but the state of our government and the administration currently in charge is making it increasingly more difficult to get behind a “celebration” or an honoring of what we have been and what we are becoming.

How is this related to mental health?

Mental health awareness month officially ended yesterday, but our mental health awareness must continue – the awareness of how we’re feeling, how people make us feel, what triggers us, and how to cope with those triggers. At our house, we have four flags in the front along with a pride flag. I left the US flags displayed in honor of our fallen for Memorial Day. I’ve decided to remove them for June. I think Flag Day has been coopted by the current president as his birthday party, and I will not participate in that. At all. I plan to replace the flags for July 4th weekend and then remove them again until Election Day.

I feel for the people who say we have nothing to celebrate. Sometimes I believe that, but sometimes I see what good happens when people do good; without the cameras rolling, without the benefits of being seen, without heaped upon praise, simply acting because that is the right thing to do. That is what I believe this country can be. I was raised that way, and I hope I’ve raised my kids that way. The ideal of the idea of the US is the melting pot, the blending of many into one – e pluribus unum.

I’ll ignore the circus in Washington, D.C. for the next few weeks, although I won’t ignore the harm they’re doing, the persecuted, the shamed, the bigotry and racism abounding currently, and acknowledging this is nothing new, we’ve always had this. We’ve hoped for the best, and I hope and pray that we can rebuild, not rebuild what we had, but a stronger foundation, a stronger, more equal place for the world to come and to look to as my great-grandparents did, as my mother-in-law did. I want us to be what we can be, what we should have been all along.

I have memories of the Bicentennial, and I am going to make memories for the 250th. I want my kids to look back in another fifty years for the three hundredth birthday and see how far we’ve come. I can hope. I can encourage.

Regardless, take your mental health temperature, and see what you want out of the next few weeks, how you want to celebrate or ignore our country’s founding, how you can stay on your recovery course in the best possible way. Make your coping tools available so when triggered you have the mental space to reset. First and foremost, take care of you.

And for my own mental health, I can ignore Washington’s circus monkeys through this birthday and then get back on the protest wagon and fight for our democracy, repair what they’ve destroyed (including the Rose Garden and the East Wing and the Voting Rights Act and Roe v. Wade), and rekindle a better place for all of us. I have faith. We can do it. We can.