practices that are handed down from the past by tradition
“All of us have rituals of one kind or another,” Mrs. Richardson said. “And look at it this way: how many girls have the opportunity to compete on equal terms with boys? Don’t look down on your heritage.”
“Many didn’t return,” Grandfather said. “Only the strongest and shrewdest. Mothers were not allowed to weep over those who didn’t return. If a Kaw couldn’t survive, he or she wasn’t worth weeping over. It was our way.”
The earthquake of twelve years ago had brought down all the old structures, and since the citizens of Pompeii were ambitious to rival Naples and even Rome, they had seized the opportunity to rebuild the whole town.
Because my father had worked a full week at the shop, where a rush order for fancy combs had been received, he allotted my brothers and sisters and me an extra dime along with the usual ten cents for the Saturday-afternoon movie.
make known to the public information previously kept secret
I did not divulge his secret and often shared his agony, particularly when he sat at the supper table and left my mother’s special butterscotch pie untouched.