by Kate Fuglei | Jan 12, 2022 | Featured, Guest Writers
Holiday Past For nearly ten years our Army son was not home during the holidays. Sometimes it was because it was his turn to take over guard duty at the base so colleagues who had children could share the holiday with their little ones. At other times it was because...
by Kate Fuglei | Dec 21, 2021 | Guest Writers
Family “Pardon me for talking while you’re interrupting.” This snarky comment was often used in my family of origin as a verbal jab, an aggressive reminder to listen. We were a large, boisterous, loud family of story-tellers and attention-seekers. One of my...
by Kate Fuglei | Nov 14, 2021 | Featured, Guest Writers
California Three years ago, when my husband was offered a job in Brooklyn, we jumped at the chance. We’d lived in Greenwich Village years ago, before our two sons were born. Before we’d moved to Studio City. Before the friendships made through years of parenting,...
by Kate Fuglei | Oct 11, 2021 | Featured, Guest Writers
My husband and I had ticked off from our list the sites of Florence and Venice. We headed to La Spezia, an unremarkable town that was the base for exploring the famous Cinque Terra, a series of five small Italian towns perched like tiny gems above the Ligurian Sea. ...
by Kate Fuglei | Sep 17, 2021 | Guest Writers
My aunt and uncle owned a funeral home in Omaha, Nebraska. They belonged to a country club with a sparkly pool. Sometimes they vacationed in Europe. Our family vacationed on a lake in Iowa. We rented a two-room cabin with torn screens and questionable plumbing. ...
by Kate Fuglei | Aug 9, 2021 | Featured, Guest Writers
I grew up in the Midwest with lots of aunts and uncles around. They dropped in constantly. There were no dates made or appointment planned. They just showed up, sometimes with a box of doughnuts or sometimes a gallon of ice cream. My mother would make a pot of...
by Kate Fuglei | Jul 16, 2021 | Guest Writers
Exposure When I first moved to New York as a young actress, I was offered a job understudying a Broadway diva for a production in Washington, D.C. I was thrilled and intimidated. I was comforted when I met her on the first day and she reassured me that she never...
by Kate Fuglei | Jun 13, 2021 | Guest Writers
When people in California hear that I was born in Nebraska, they assume I was raised on a farm, with cornstalks, cows and rolling plains. But as Eva Gabor once said, “I get allergic smelling hay.” I have rarely been on a farm; I grew up in Omaha, a city of 400,000...
by Kate Fuglei | May 14, 2021 | Guest Writers
Listen Yesterday I spoke with my friend whose son is in Afghanistan. He is in the Army and he is among the last troops to be there. The situation is fluid, tense, uncertain. It is transitional, to put it delicately. He is her beloved only son. As a fellow...
by Kate Fuglei | Apr 10, 2021 | Featured, Guest Writers
One Year Ago – 2020 On our final night in Brooklyn a year ago, my husband and I took a walk on Court Street. We headed through Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens to our favorite pizza joint. It was grey and rainy. A fine mist fell over everything as...
by Kate Fuglei | Mar 27, 2021 | Guest Writers
Connecting Through Cleaning My Grandma Alta and I connected through cleaning. She was a tall, thin woman whose Norwegian ancestors had made a place for themselves toiling in the fields of eastern Nebraska. She lived in Omaha in a small, eternally neat apartment when I...
by Kate Fuglei | Feb 15, 2021 | Guest Writers
*I owe a man in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, 60 cents for six Payday candy bars I stole from him when I was ten. They were cheaper then, ten cents each. But I stole them and I never repaid him. Our family vacation every year was a trip to Minnesota to stay at a lake...
by Kate Fuglei | Jan 23, 2021 | Guest Writers
Kate, their dog and MaryEllen, Kate’s best friend “It’s a Free Country” We were a Lutheran family although my mother was raised Catholic. She became a Lutheran later in life. It may have had something to do with the fact that we lived across...
by Kate Fuglei | Dec 22, 2020 | Guest Writers
As the saying goes, what happens in acting class stays in acting class Yes, it is true. You share things with fellow actors in an acting class that your nearest and dearest family members may not even know. In a great class, like that of the brilliant Gordon Hunt, you...
by Kate Fuglei | Nov 3, 2020 | Guest Writers
My elder son went to the United States Military Academy, commonly known as West Point. Parents were invited for grand occasions and ceremonies. But one November during his second year at West Point, I had a business trip to Manhattan and decided to visit him during a...
by Kate Fuglei | Oct 20, 2020 | Featured, Guest Writers
My Uncle Ed used to insist he had ridden a bicycle from Nebraska to Guatemala. He claimed he had learned to swim by being thrown into the Mississippi River when he was four. He said he had roped steer on cattle drives from Abilene to Texarkana. My father frowned on...
by Kate Fuglei | Sep 30, 2020 | Everyday Hero, Featured
Camp Director, Casey Banks, is inspiring hundreds of teens to see the importance of actions and consequences through a Youth and Government program he established at YMCA’s Camp Whittle in Los Angeles County, CA. Teaching Core Values, Changing Lives and Strengthening...
by Kate Fuglei | Sep 26, 2020 | Guest Writers
My father- in-law was always 100% supportive of his children and grandchildren. They could do no wrong. Once, when he was visiting LA, we came home from a pre-school conference about my elder son. I told my father-in-law what they had said. “He is slightly...
by Kate Fuglei | Aug 21, 2020 | Guest Writers
The Stephen Sondheim song I’M STILL HERE rings in my head often these days. One of the lyrics goes, “I should have gone to an acting school, that seems clear.” The song itself is about an old actress who has seen it all and survived. I didn’t go to any fancy acting...
by Kate Fuglei | Jul 15, 2020 | Guest Writers
Kate Fuglei, writer and actress, in character as Rachel Calof —The Rachel Calof Story: A Memoir With Music Inspired by the Past A grayish brick has a permanent place of honor in the middle of my desk. On top of the chunk of brick sits a round black piece of smooth...
