Pastoral Resources

I write to tell my grandchildren where they come from, and what their grandparents were up to, and I hope they will in their own way continue. I invite anyone else to listen in.

I was an adopted child of my grandparents, and I don't know how I can ever express my gratitude for that, because my parents would have been a mess, you know.

When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British.

Going out in Paris was like going out in the '30s dressed like the Andrews Sisters. It was everything I'd seen in books at my grandparents' house, only it was our generation.

I'd experienced the '40s and '50s by looking at my grandparents' old clothes, books, and magazines.

The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.

The vision of a nation formed from many different peoples bound together by a common love of freedom was staked out long before our lifetimes or even our parents' or grandparents' lifetimes.

Every summer, my grandparents would rent a house on Balboa Island. They had the house next to Bob Hope's. I've been going down there all my life, to that whole area.

And, I think, as a kid, I had a strong motivation to do something of my life. And, I think that's the strongest motivation I really got. And, that came obviously from my parents and my grandparents.

I phoned my grandparents and my grandfather said 'We saw your movie.' 'Which one?' I said. He shouted 'Betty, what was the name of that movie I didn't like?

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

My grandparents told endless stories about the town they were from. It became an almost mythic place.

And yes, the Homesteaders, including my grandparents who left behind almost nothing, and arrived in Montana with nothing but the clothes on their back, high hopes, faith in God and dreaming of the future.

Can you imagine that Cuba and Europe's youth, who had forgotten about traditional music, who only thought of rock music, are now looking back towards their grandparents? That is a phenomenon.

The people who have recently come to this country to work and better their lives should be given the same opportunities that our parents, grandparents, and ancestors were given.

I can think of no one that my grandparents knew, that told me stories and that I experienced myself, had any sense of social inferiority growing up in segregated Washington. None whatsoever.

At NBC I wasn't really sure if the grandparents were going to get my sense of humor on a particular topic.

It was sort of just a family sport. My mom and dad were pretty keen golfers when I was young and so were my grandparents, and I just sort of tagged along with them.

My parents moved to Los Angeles when I was really young, but I spent every summer with my grandparents, and I'd stay with my grandfather on the farm in Longview. He was retired from the railroad, and he had a small farm with some cows and some pigs. I remember part of my youth was feeding hogs and plowing fields and stuff, so that's a part of me.