1. accent
THE SUNDAY REPUBLICAN DECEMBER 30, 2007
SECTION
G
Pets page Annie’s Mailbox
See how some pets celebrated When a 43rd anniversary
Christmas. 6G is nothing to celebrate. 2G
your SUNDAY
REFLECTIONS
TRACEY
O’SHAUGHNESSY
PENNY-PINCHING Contact
tips sought,
denied
BY CARRIE MACMILLAN / REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
e asked readers for their favorite money-
W saving tips and they responded. Read on
T O D AY ’ S I S S U E
for some ideas on how to start your new
IN ANOTHER ERA
year on the cheap.
ven now, I find it
E difficult to call him
a predator.
Perhaps it’s be-
A ‘frugal’ woman cause I’m not sure where that
label leaves me.
I’ve read that victims tend to
shares a million tips be hesitant to condemn their
oppressors. No doubt, there’s
I’m the woman who woke up one morning, looked some sort of psychoanalytical
in my closet and wondered why I had 32 white shirts. matrix to that. But the most
Certainly every shirt had a purpose or a specific out- chilling, and enduring memo-
fit or a time of year to be worn, but the fact of the ries are the ambiguous ones,
matter was I had 32 white shirts in my closet and I the ones that were and weren’t
said, Wow! That’s not right. About 10 years have what you thought, the ones
gone by and I’ve really examined what I buy and without resolution, the ones
why I buy. I’m down to about six white shirts now as that still leave you a little
well as cutting back much of the excess and impul- queasy even though it’s undeni-
sive spending that I do. able that you survived, after all.
I met Mr. Willson when I was
18 years old, home alone after
E AT W H AT YO U B U Y
I had to really rethink food shopping and cooking. my first year in college, and ir-
When we started to eat recommended portions, we revocably lonely. My mother
really didn’t need to buy huge amounts of things. As I was working in Provincetown
looked at my pantry and my cupboards and what was for the summer and I was
in my refrigerator, I realized I probably didn’t have charged with caring for my
to shop for three months if I just used all the stuff I 12-year-old bother who, even
already had. So I started to organize meals to use the then, had a more interesting
various cans and packages and mixes and pastas that life than I.
I already had. For four months, I was only buying
meat, fresh vegetables and dairy.
I realized I had been buying groceries in the same
MR. WILLSON
way my mother had — when she went shopping once
DIED SIX YEARS
a week, stores closed in the early evening and on
Sundays, and maybe a blizzard or drought would AGO. I READ HIS
keep us stuck in the woods for a few weeks. With 24-
OBITUARY IN THE
7 grocery stores, there is no reason to “stock up” on
PAPER AND THE
anything. Now, I have only one shelf in my pantry
with canned goods, mixes pastas. And when I shop, NEWS FILLED ME
whatever I buy, I use. I try to buy on sale. WITH MORE THAN
A LITTLE PITY.
See MONEY, Page 2G
EVEN NOW, I FIND
HIS LONELINESS
PATHETIC. EVEN
NOW, I WONDER IF
I MISJUDGED HIM.
Most of my time was spent
alone under a self-imposed
monastic discipline. I read. I
ran. I sat, pointlessly, in the sun
on a beige bridge chair,
slathered in baby oil, desperate
for the elusive suburban tan.
On Sundays, I walked to
Mass and was typically picked
up by a neighbor, who pulled to
the side of the road and told me
to “hop in.” It was that kind of a
time. It was that kind of a place.
Mr. Willson was one of these
neighbors. He drove a tomato
red Ford truck with a battered
white camper snapped to the
cab. Every afternoon, around 4,
he drove it slowly past my
house, the driver’s window
down and his left elbow
propped along the window jam.
I used to see him on my daily
run. He began by simply wav-
ing at me. Not a wave, but a
kind of salute of recognition. I
waved back.
One afternoon, just as I was
sprinting the last 50 yards
home, Mr. Willson’s truck
pulled up beside me.
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See MR. WILLSON, Page 2G