Jessie’s Earrings It’s sweet how a chance word can evoke a flood of memories. My mother Jessie is gone more than 20 years and I think of her I often.  But after talking to a friend about the current rage for tattooing and body piercing I thought of a habit of Jessie’s I’d forgotten. She… Read More

Saturday Night at the Big Y When the lights went out in New York during the great northeast blackout of 1965,  I was browsing with a friend at Georg Jensen,  an upscale Madison Avenue shop.   All us shoppers held hands,  and in single file we groped our way out to the dark street.  (See Aunt… Read More

The Chair in the Courtyard When I met my friend Rose she’d been a window for several years.  She spoke lovingly about her late husband Bob and I soon learned he’d been her second husband. One day over lunch Rose and I were reminiscing about our past lives and she told me this story. She’d… Read More

Rye Playland,   Rye NY Growing up in the Bronx our nearest amusement park was Rye Playland on Long Island Sound north of the city in Westchester County. As a kid I was often taken there by my parents,  but my memories of those childhood trips are vague.  As a teenager however, I remember Rye… Read More

Lydia Before tattooing became as commonplace as it is today –  especially for women  – there was Lydia. And here’s Groucho to tell us all about her! – Dana Susan Lehrman Read More

Fear of the Other I’m a white woman who for years worked in a public high school in New York’s inner city –  in fact in the infamous south Bronx of Fort Apache fame. I usually carpooled to work with fellow teachers  but at times took the subway from my upper east-side Manhattan neighborhood .  As… Read More

A Glass Menagerie from The Five and Dime When I was a kid there were two stores In my Bronx neighborhood we called the “five-and-dimes”.  One was Woolworth which of course was a national chain,  and the other was Fishers which I think was just a local store.  Yet to my child’s sensibility they were… Read More

The Great Pickleball Noise War I was an adult when I started playing tennis seriously,  but try as I might to ratchet up my game I seemed to have plateaued at intermediate level 3.  I was too good to enjoy playing with beginners,  and not good enough to play with advanced players who certainly didn’t… Read More

Ulysses  Please don’t think I’m an insufferable literary snob if I tell you I’ve read Ulysses several times.   But in fact I have,  and I think it’s indeed a masterpiece,  and not at all as hard to read and understand as you may have been led to believe.  (See My Love Affair with James Joyce)… Read More

Mother’s Little Helper After a trouble-free pregnancy,  and a complication-free C-section, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy.   We hired a wonderful baby nurse to show us the ropes,  we had loving  grandparents living nearby,  and I was on maternity leave from a job I loved that would wait for me when I… Read More