Tanesha  Raised in an upper-middle class home I’m sure as a child I had little understanding of how the other half lives.  Years later working in the inner-city I had a rude awakening. As a newly licensed high school librarian I was assigned by the New York City Board of Education to a small vocational high… Read More

Literacy for Incarcerated Teens  When I retired after my long career as a high school librarian,  my friend Karlan called me.  Karlan was recently retired herself after working for New York Public Library as a young adult librarian. “I’m heading a new organization called Literacy for Incarcerated Teens / LIT “,  she said,  “it’s a good… Read More

The Great Jane Addams Library Flood I’ve written about my years as head librarian at Jane Addams,  a New York City public vocational high school.  (See Magazines for the Principal,  The Parking Lot Seniority List,  Shelf List, The Diary of a Young Girl,   Early Session Commute  and Educator of the Year:  Remembering Milton) Here’s another story. Because of… Read More

The Parents Group When our son was born in New York Hospital I was asked if we’d like to attend The First Year of Life,  a series of quarterly lectures by Lee Salk,  the renown child psychologist.  Of course we signed up and over the following year we attended four wonderful lectures held in a… Read More

Inks and Derek: Art and the Cricket Scores In the early 1970s my husband Danny accepted a stint in his company’s London office.   (See Laundry Day in London,   Kinky Boots,  Valentine’s Day in Foggytown,  Intro to Cookery,  and Munro) He’d be working for a guy named Derek whom I hadn’t met,  but Danny assured me I’d… Read More

Seating Plan Years ago when our son was busy studying his bar mitzvah Torah portion,  we were busy planning the celebratory luncheon that would follow the service.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family) We picked the restaurant,  selected the menu,  made up the guest list,  and sent out the invitations. We invited family of course,  our friends… Read More

Tapestry A few years ago my husband’s college roommate Ken invited us to join him on a trip to Normandy.   I had a bit of a hassle replacing my missing travel documents,  but eventually all was resolved.  (See The Purloined Passport) We flew first to Paris where we visited with family and friends, then rented… Read More

The Peacock Both my husband and I bear the scars of early burns.  Mine is under my chin and dates from a very minor,  almost funny childhood accident;  his scar is on his arm, dates from the hour of his birth, and tells a more somber tale. As I child I loved summer camp and… Read More

My Day in the ER Recently I spend practically a whole day in the ER. I had a Zoom book club meeting the day before and was eating a tuna fish sandwich as I sat at my computer talking with my book club friends. I made the tuna salad myself and in fact my husband… Read More

Scammed! I thought I was pretty smart but the scammers out there are even smarter! A few years ago I got a call telling me my Verizon bill was overdue and my cell phone service would soon be discontinued. I thought I’d paid that bill and could easily have checked,  or  I could have hung up… Read More