Retreat  A dozen or so years ago my cousin Kathy called me in New York from DC and asked me to join her the following month for a Jewish women’s retreat. Because geography had always kept us apart,  spending a weekend with my cousin was appealing and a women’s retreat would be a new experience… Read More

Surprise Party When her husband Andrew was turning 40,  my friend Simi decided to throw him a surprise party in their apartment,  and she asked for my help. We were both stay-at-home moms then with plenty of free time on our hands for surprise party planning.  In fact for weeks before the party we must… Read More

Bus Stop While I was waiting at 86th Street for the Fifth Avenue bus the other day, a young woman, probably in her 20s,  walked up to me and asked where she could get the limited. I told her the limited bus stop was about two blocks south,  and she thanked me and started walking… Read More

College Girl – for Aunt Hannah “One is never too old to learn.”  Hannah told us when she announced she was starting college in her 80s. My husband’s aunt Hannah was the gentlest soul I’ve ever known.  No one in our family can remember her saying a harsh or an unkind word. Hannah and her… Read More

My Favorite Beatle Like every girl of my generation, I had a favorite Beatle and about a year ago we actually met! My husband and I were having lunch at Lexington Candy Shop on Lex & 83rd,  a favorite local coffeeshop.  The place prides itself on it’s celebrity patronage with signed photos on the walls… Read More

Cherry Coke I must confess I often find myself googling my college crush. Actually M was more than a crush,  he was my steady boyfriend during my freshman and sophomore years,  until I took a camp job that following summer and met someone else.  But that’s another story. M was a class ahead of me… Read More

Library Lesson I was an English lit major in college and on track to teach high school English.  But an aunt and a family friend were librarians and they both encouraged me to consider that field. It sounded perfect for me,  and I applied to the graduate library programs at Simmons in Boston and at Columbia.… Read More

West with the Night Walking down a tree-lined block in the East 80s the other day I passed a brownstone with a pretty patio fronting the street.  There on a small table someone had  left an open library book. Always curious about what others are reading,  I looked through the wrought iron gate to see… Read More

Magazines for the Principal I had a long and happy career as a school librarian,  the last years spent at Jane Addams,  a small vocational high school in the south Bronx.  The neighborhood was poor and rather sketchy,  and the students,  burdened with lives lived in those mean streets,  were sometimes difficult.  But our dedicated… Read More

The Diary of a Young Girl Among my friends and the distaff side of my family are many very accomplished women – doctors, nurses and therapists, a pharmacist and a research scientist, lawyers, two judges and a diplomat, a film editor, a TV producer and a theatrical director, several writers and artists, and a publisher… Read More