We’re starting a blog here to celebrate Sally and share her wisdom among ourselves. If you have any stories you’d like to (briefly) share, hop aboard. On the website, I’m about to post some “outtakes” from the book — anecdotes that didn’t make the cut but were too delicious to just drop, so take a look. Happy holidays! –Judy
December 18, 2007 at 1:29 am |
Delighted with all that is transpiring. I am in awe of what Sally and her friends are accomplishing, not only spiritually, but politically. Thanks so much for being. j
December 18, 2007 at 2:19 am |
Thanks, Joanne. Say, answer something for me. I have a theory that everybody (in Spokane, anyway) is connected to Sally by just two degrees of separation. What do you think? And how did you meet Sal?
December 18, 2007 at 5:14 am |
Wow! What a superb website you have created! It’s beautiful!
Sally is everything wonderful anyone says about her and much more! She got me through a difficult time in my life many years ago and put me back on the road to success. I’ll never forget her!
Hooray for the new era of womanhood Sally has begun! She’s been a mentor and role model to so many women in Spokane–let’s hope we grow up to be as wild and wonderful as she has been all through the years!
December 18, 2007 at 3:35 pm |
You are SO right, Judy. Whether you are a harried parent, or travel in the art circles, you would meet Sally. We have had “barely brushes” in thirty odd years, but I was asked to come to the Thursday group when a writer felt I would be interested in fellow writers. I have joined the throng that enjoys the e-mail procession. Whether you know Sally personally or electronically, she is electrifying.
December 18, 2007 at 3:51 pm |
Oh My GOD!!! I am loving all this attention. It is a real honor for me to have so many wonderful, funny, talented young women to play with…. I LOVE how so many of you find your way to my Thursdays and we all stumble around, and then new networks start and ideas cook, and another AHA appears… Life is GOOD!!!
December 29, 2007 at 8:07 pm |
Hi cousin SALLY,
According to my genealogy software, we are 3rd cousins twice removed. I also descend from JOHN JOSEPH ABERCROMBIE, SR. & SARAH (DE NORMANDIE) PETER. I have been spending this last year doing research on both the ABERCROMBIE & DE NORMANDIE families on both ancestry and descendants. Would love to share family research with you! I just found 2 letters JJA wrote to BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (American Philosophical Society website) a few days ago begging his help in obtaining a passport back to Charleston, SC (where 12 of his houses had been lost in big fire) and also reminding him of a loan FRANKLIN had made to him three weeks before. The letters were from Bordeaux, France. FRANKLIN was also in France at this time as Ambassador. I am getting the wonderful sounding book about your life! Fun to find another nonconformist ABERCROMBIE-DE NORMANDIE descendant! I like your artwork very much too. I am a lifelong artist!
Jacki Russell, McKinleyville, CA
December 31, 2007 at 12:07 pm |
Sally is beautiful and funny. She knows how to stay present and that is why so many people older and younger know her. I have known her since 1983 first from the arts and her contributions there. But everyone that meets Sally feels good, because she is so good at listening and making one feel special to her. She is curious like a child is and interested. When you need her she is there and encouraging. She really likes to be your friend and works at appreciating everyone that she meets. She is also a support and credit to many of my male friends too. I’m looking forward to this book about her. Yes, LIFE IS GOOD…and what you make it! Love you Sally.
January 1, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
The best advice Sally ever gave me?
“Take my advice… I’m not using it!”
Of course, we fall over laughing — and by the time we’re through trying not to pee our pants, the whole silly whatever-it-was-drama has dried up and blown away!
LOVE that woman!
January 3, 2008 at 11:33 am |
Sally Pierone has influenced my life in many positive ways, more times than I could enumerate. When I am in my little office at the YWCA I look at a photo of Sally and myself taken several years ago and I feel so happy! I love Judy Laddon and her imagination as well!
May the Universe bless each person on this blog in 2008 with new insight and joy!
Sheri Barnard
January 3, 2008 at 1:14 pm |
I am six. Sally is four and a half. It is summer at Hayden Lake, and there is a wedding going on. Sally, the flower girl, walks down the grass to a small bower set up to enclose the bishop. She drops rose petals as she has been instructed. She is followed by the matron of honor, our mother, and then by the bride in a wonderful dress of crystal beads with a short skirt and long train. (It is 1925.) Attached to the train, holding it up, are myself and Ned Rice. The service starts.
“Who gives this woman away?” the bishop asks.
There is a loud wail. The flower girl has burst into tears. “Don’t give Aunt Tootoo away!” she sobs. That’s our Sal.
January 5, 2008 at 8:38 am |
Growing up in Spokane is largely about growing up Normal. At least that’s how it felt forty years ago. But then I met one of my mother’s friends. And I learned a little about what it took, how it felt, to approach life in a way that defied limitation.
A good lesson to learn when you’re young. A good one to learn at any age.
Thanks for the opportunity to both remember this, and to thank its author.
January 5, 2008 at 12:06 pm |
Harley, I am thrilled to hear from you! I have always loved you, and I am amazed that you found this blog! Happy New Year! and thanks for the memory. I am so glad it was a good one.
January 6, 2008 at 11:52 am |
Our mother loved to entertain, and the big house on Summit Boulevard was an excellent place to so, even if it was on the North Side [of Spokane]. It was Prohibition, but that was no drawback. There were always bootleggers. Here is a typical winter event. A large group is invited for cocktails. Laura, our maid, is in the kitchen. Incoming guests come upstairs, leave their coats on the big bed in the front room, and go down to the party. Sally and I leave my room, it is bigger than hers, where we have been playing paper dolls or something else and go into the big front room to see what good things have arrived. We love to try on coats, particularly fur ones. We parade around the room and look at ourselves in the full length mirror on the closet door.
Suddenly there is noise in the hall. If it is really close, we scurry under the bed. If not, we go back to our rooms. We are not afraid of being caught in the hall. We say “How-do-you-do” very politely. Once in a while, if there is a guest I particularly like, or I am just feeling like it, I write notes, attach them to a string and lower them over the railing so they hang in the back hall where people come in. Once in a while, they provoke someone to come and see what we are doing.
And then we grow older and no longer play dress-up. One day in the future we give our own parties.
January 7, 2008 at 11:34 am |
Honey does give her own parties, both in NYC and Chicago. I do not!! When I moved into my new house here on 19th I forgot all my cooking skills (that were at best, unfreeze or add Hamburger Helper). There is a lovely habit that has happened here. “Want to come over? Fine! Bring us something to eat.”
Left to my own devices I mix up disgusting-tasting drinks that are made of V8 and various herbal powders guaranteed to make you grow grass on your head and perfume in your colon. I have so far met no guests that wish to share these heath treats.
January 29, 2008 at 2:49 pm |
Hi… Dial up my son’s new music web site: Nick Pierone.com. Snoop around there, as there are lots of pages. Great, quirky artwork (by him) and some great songs…ENJOY!!!!
Let me know if you go there, and tell me what you think! Sally