I won a prize for getting older – atrophy. I can sneeze and pee at the same time! I will not laughing as I get older because I know I will grow old when I stop laughing. I may only be young once but I’m pretty sure I can be immature indefinitely. Read More

That is what I thought of with the Retrospect Topic ‘Changing Times’ – not the clocks to be moved forward but the 1960s and then beyond. I was 14 when Bob Dylan’s song ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ was first released and it foretold for me, it prepared me for, my coming of age challenges… Read More

The movie Marathon Man was released in 1976 and Laurence Olivier played the part of Szell a former WWII Nazi German enroute to New York City from South America to recover some stolen and previously hidden diamonds. Dustin Hoffman plays the part of Thomas Babington brother to a US secret agent and who unwittingly gets… Read More

It was a movie that got me into cooking; it was 1989 when Field of Dreams was released and there was a scene in the movie where the first baseman ghost (Chick Gandil) who had been dead for many years says to Ray Kinsilla (Kevin Costner) “You don’t have a cigarette on yah do yah?”… Read More

I am probably going against the tide of opinion when I extol the very good service I have received from the Unites States Postal Service (USPS), the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) and, dare I say it, Amazon. The USPS has always done well by me. I cannot recall even one missed piece of… Read More

Most American youngsters learned their Fairy Tales from Aesop and the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson. Me? I was a ‘T. V. Baby’ and that electronic device was my friend and baby sitter (and later boy sitter) so I got Rocket J. Squirrel, Bullwinkle The Moose, Boris, Natasha et al for breakfast, some times… Read More

I am out of bounds and I know it but the title ‘Broadcast News’ coincides with one of my favorite movies so I am going with that. Wonderful writing and three future movie stars; Future Oscar winners Holly Hunter and William Hurt and Albert Brooks (Oscar nominee for Broadcast News.) Released in 1987 it still… Read More

My answer surprised even me: "I am here because I am a middle child I will now longer be quiet - tonight I will speak up." (I am in fact a middle child three times over; 4th that of 7, 3rd of four and 2nd of three and so it was definitely time to speak up.) And I did. Read More

I had the good fortune (Koun) to travel to Japan on business. I was familiar with Lederer/ Burdick’s The Ugly American and so I was on my best behavior. I was remember being impressed with the sale of beer through vending machines on their city streets. Back then I was a smoker and after almost… Read More

I was thrilled when some relative gave me a crystal radio for my birthday. Read More