Good Girl As a kid I gave my parents little trouble and later showed only the usual rebellious teen spirit.  (They disapproved of guys I dated,  but that’s another story). And although I’ve stood on picket lines,  argued  before the Corps of Engineers against ecologically disastrous city projects,  marched for good causes,  volunteered for a few,… Read More

Reunion A few months ago I wrote about three places,  each of which I can claim as a home town.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home,  The Lady with the Torch,  Kente Cloth) I was born in Charleston, SC yet for most of my adult life I’ve lived on Manhattan’s eastside.  But the east Bronx neighborhood of… Read More

Thanks for the Memories How do I say thank you to four gals I’ve never met but feel I’ve known forever? – the Sacramento ringleader,  lawyer,  activist,  singer,  has a song title for every occasion – the big-hearted brunette from the Windy City,  blogger,  passionate educator,  kid whisperer – the Jersey girl now California techie,… Read More

The Plug-In Drug Most of my friends have been TV bingeing for years,  and during the pandemic lockdown it certainly was the activity of choice. But I’ve never been much of a TV watcher,  and I couldn’t agree more with Marie Winn when in the 1970s she wrote about the problems inherent in watching  too much… Read More

My Snowy Year in Buffalo In the mid-60s I was newly married and heading up to Buffalo, NY for a year while my husband completed med school.  I had just gotten my graduate library degree and applied to the Buffalo Dept of Ed for a school librarian’s job. I was interviewed at the school superintendent’s… Read More

Dear Younger Self What a cutie!   But seriously I’m here to give you some advice. Be a more adventurous eater,  try the sushi. Don’t fight with your mother so much,  you’ll find out later she was usually right. Practice the piano so you can play something besides Fur Elyse. Don’t abandon your theatre dreams… Read More

Behind the Mask Like all families,  ours at times has been an unwilling friend to darkness.   A medical officer in WW II,  my dad served on troop ships bringing soldiers to theaters of war and returning with the wounded and the dead,  and on a Stateside army base during those dark days I was… Read More

Holiday in Limbo It’s hard to believe but with the passing of the generations I’m now the family matriarch. It’s not my great-uncle Sid leading Seder but my husband,  not my aunt Babs cooking Rosh Hashanah dinner but me,  not my dad carving the Thanksgiving turkey but my son. But will he this year?  A… Read More

Skate Key Home from school,  a hurried snack,  bread with both sides buttered,  chocolate milk,  an apple offered but rudely refused.   (“Don’t be fresh young lady!”)  Skates strapped over shoes,  no purse,  no house key,  no hanky,  just a skate key on a ribbon around her neck,  then out the door.  (“Be careful!”) Down… Read More

The Troubadour  I’ve written about my childhood summers at my grandmother’s small Catskill hotel.  (See My Game Mother and My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel)  Here’s another memory. Once or twice every summer when I was very young,  an elderly man whom we called the Troubadour came to the hotel to spend an evening entertaining the guests… Read More