Photographs of Provincetown, Mass. by Dr. Nancy DeLuca, UMass Lowell, Department of Chemistry/College of Arts & Sciences; Author of Chemistry, A Laboratory Manual. She serves as a scholar for The National Faculty, an organization which provides educators in higher education to assist local districts in curriculum and faculty development. 

Where do you want to be right now? If you can't be there have you ever taken a webcam to that destination? Today with www.earthcam.com you can take in a live view from a wharf in Florida to the grave of the artist Warhol. Or the 9/11 Memorial to nearby Times Square. If you have a bit of computer knowledge you can do what I did: take a photograph of a friend and her grandson as they stood near a webcam in Times Square! If you like to watch zoo animals, there are a myriad of webcams to enjoy. If you want more, view Turkey, Prague, or Paris! I am fond of going to the webcam that shows the Town Hall area in Provincetown. Massachusetts. I have always loved Cape Cod, in general, since a friend, Dodie, introduced me to the beauty of the Harwichport and Chatham area. Here are two options for viewing. www.provincetown.com (my poem's inspiration) or www.provincetownview.com

Photograph of cheesecake by Jean Schugart-Schild. The rest are from my personal collection.

I am a Type 2 Diabetic. This is a bit of my story. There are many informative website out there. www.diabetes.org. And if you want some of the greatest and easiest diabetic and essentially low carb recipes for everyone to use, try this fantastic site: www.everydaydiabeticrecipes.com I have this as a Facebook like and there are daily recipes for free.

There are numerous types of homes and places most of us have lived in: apartments, condos, shacks, houses, trailers, institutions. Some people were brought up in one home or space. My parents lived in (rented) five different  apartments from my birth in 1951, and onward to 1967 when my father finally stopped renting and bought the building at 338 Warren Street, Hudson, New York. It was the home of their final days.

All of that moving is why my home/house is so important to me to this day. Apartment living taught me that I like having roots. With a woman's-only wage, I could not afford to buy a home until my 50's.

Do you go back and look at where you once lived? I did. I have vivid memories of 'living' in those several places. This story is a bit of a share of what I saw happening in front of 366 Columbia. The photograph within the writing is one of mine, and not very good. The day was stormy. Spring was coming in fast. At the end of this written piece is a link to Google Street View. You'll see that the lot is totally empty as of 2014, no buildings at all! The link may not work but feel free to have a search for your own past before it fades away.

The photo directly below was taken by my mother of my Dad and her then three children in approximately 1954. I am the short one to the front. The building is no longer there. It was the Fourth Street School and was part of the junior high school system in the 60's. It was basically around the corner and up the hill from 366 Columbia Street.

Sweet kudos to my late mother for making those dresses. You might notice my dear sister Zora's self-consciousness with her leg, the sweetheart removed a leg brace she had to wear for sometime.

I dedicate this writing to one of my mother's sisters, my Aunt Mary Keyes. She and her second husband, Tom Keyes were good-hearted and kind people. Tom died before Mary. Before Mary died she developed diabetes, and lost a leg to the ravages of this disease. She always craved protein on all of her visits to us, but ate many carbs instead.

Photograph by Jean Schugart-Schild