Founded in 1948, Brandeis is a young university with a small, largely uninvolved alumni base, though the university is getting better at grooming their younger alumni. The Alumni Office knew they had a winner in me right from the start. I used to stop in and visit, particularly after my kids were born. I’d take… Read More

Every female mammal has some form of them. They are functional. Yet for centuries, (mostly) men have dictated style and ferver about female breasts, both how much was decent to expose in fashion and how large was fashionable at any given moment. From the annals of art history and “Rubenesque” women in the 1600s to the… Read More

Costumes and candy, trick-or-treating, pumpkin carving and leaves rustling under foot, parades at school. All made up happy times when my kids were young and Halloween rolled around. Autumn in New England is so beautiful with the brightly colored leaves on display. We always hoped it wouldn’t be too cold or too wet when we’d… Read More

I was rushing to pack for Boston, but took the phone call. It was my client at the Farm Bureau Insurance in Indianapolis, calling to say the signed contract was being FedExed to my office. Perfect way to start my birthday weekend. Dan and I had lived apart for almost 8 months by this point,… Read More

“Don’t trust anyone over 30!” I remember the phrase well, but somehow, though I did some eye-rolling back in the day at things my parents said, I never embraced the philosophy. My parents were the babies of their respective families and were 39 when I was born. I am the youngest in a large generation… Read More

Shy people often come alive through acting. I was no exception. Though a skirt-hugger as a little girl, I started singing publicly as a 7 year old, and acting at about the same time. Everyone thought I had some talent and I was encouraged to pursue it. I was passionate about it. With the stage… Read More

I didn’t know Maria well. She was a senior and I, a freshman, in the autumn of 1970. She was thin with a puff of blonde curls surrounding her pleasant face. We had mutual friends and we were driving to one’s house at the western end of the Mass Pike late one Saturday evening, exactly… Read More

We came off the Vineyard just before Labor Day, 2001 to a house in renovation chaos and our family in chaos. My in-laws had always spent the parting days of summer with us on the Vineyard, then the beginning of the fall with us in Newton, but Erv passed away the previous May. Gladys still… Read More

I graduated from Brandeis in 1974 with a degree in Theatre Arts and a Massachusetts Secondary Teaching Certificate. I also got married a month after graduating. Dan, my new husband, worked at a small software company in Waltham, MA called SofTech, but would start graduate school in the fall, though he continued to work part… Read More

The Democratic Party has won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, but lost the office of the President due to the Electoral College. The Electoral College has GOT to go! The framers of the Constitution had a population made up heavily of farmers, many of whom were illiterate and lived… Read More