For the first time, my husband and I did not have turkey for our Thanksgiving meal, choosing instead butter-soft filet mignon for our dinner-for-two this year. However, tradition is much on my mind. As US embassies, foreign service families, and ex-pats of all kinds celebrate America’s national holiday abroad, the events of the day are…
As I completed EMBASSY KID, I tracked down my 7th grade best friend down to let her know how much she meant to me.
Robert and Nancy Amerson, Cape Cod So, Nancy, what did you do while you were overseas?A question posed to my mother, Nancy Robb Amerson, at a Cape Cod dinner party of accomplished retirees Here’s what she wrote in 2004 about that encounter. Nothing Feeling wicked, I found myself answering, “Nothing.” I don’t usually consider myself…
Home leave territory is a place where it is always summer, where our extended family lived in the same homes year after year, and where we were the celebrated visitors.
In 1955, I learned how to walk to a Latin playlist The earliest tunes I remember hearing were the Venezuelan rhythms of música criolla which the radio stations in Caracas played at night. Dad had an affinity for music—part genetic, his farmer father was a self-taught fiddler, and part born of listening to songs streaming…
We stand with the brave people of Ukraine, as President Kennedy with the people of Berlin in 1963.
We all have celebration traditions. Mine are Birthday Breakfast and anchovy pizza. Here’s why.
Though I looked American, I was not; I was a sort of clandestine foreigner.
USIA showcased democracy My father, Robert C. Amerson, spent his Foreign Service career in the United States Information Agency, the Cold War organization that communicated US policy abroad and carried out international information and cultural programs. Among the American traditions showcased by Dad’s office every four years were Election Day in November, the announcement of…
Before we retired to the South Florida tropics seven years ago, we lived in the Northeast, where shorter days meant colder days from the fall right into midwinter. My head doesn’t quite understand how the temperature stays mild here as twilight takes over before we’re quite ready for it. We shine a light on the…