When summer was drawing to a close and the cranberries were ripe on the vines, we knew my gram, Rose, was about to make her famous cran cobbler. She’d toss out an order to fetch some pans from the hidden pantry in her bedroom, and like Pavlov’s dogs, our mouths would water as we foraged through the pantry for the largest cranberry-picking pans we could find...

The lollipop is said to have been created by George Smith of New Haven, CT in 1908. He owned a small candy store called The Bradley Smith Company and named his treats after his favorite racehorse, Lolly Pop. Getting a patent was difficult, however, as the term first appeared in The English Dictionary in the early 1800s as “a hard sweetmeat sometimes on a stick”. Sure sounds like a lollipop to me!

Rose met me and Penny at the car with a glass in each hand. I’ll tell you, lemonade had never tasted so good. But that was Rose; she always found a way to turn lemons into lemonade...

It’s the simple things in life that bring us the most joy—like roasting marshmallows around a fire with our grandkids, a warm cran cobbler fresh from the oven, the smell of wildflowers after a rain, and the refreshing taste of an ice cold cocktail on a sweltering summer day...