I have made a total of eight moves in my life, and it is astonishing how many details I have forgotten. Read More

The Marvelettes had it right with “Please Mr. Postman.” Back in the pre-electronic days, waiting for the postman to come with the day’s mail was agonizing when you were hoping to hear from someone (“Is there a letter in your bag for me?”). If there was nothing it was such a letdown. (“So many days… Read More

My high school was a small, selective public high school on the campus of Montclair State College that admitted 30 students in each grade, 15 boys and 15 girls. It went from seventh through twelfth grade, so you can imagine how well we got to know each other, such a small group spending six years… Read More

I am not organized, and I have no particular desire to be. You can figure this out as soon as you walk into my house. Well, sometimes the downstairs looks organized, because we scoop everything up and take it upstairs if we know we are having company. This leads to some chaos in the upstairs… Read More

Originally this story was titled “Closing Out the ’70s in my 20s.” It began as follows: I know you are surprised that I didn’t use a song for the title of this story. But I just remembered this particular New Year’s Eve while I was in the shower this morning, and wanted to get the… Read More

As you can see from the movie poster above, the name of the movie I am writing about is Knock Down the House, but I kept thinking that the 1983 song by the Talking Heads, Burning Down the House, would have made a better title. Maybe the filmmakers wanted to call it that, but the… Read More

I get very grouchy this time of year. I hate going into any kind of store, because they are invariably playing Christmas music. Even if they avoid the blatantly religious songs, and stick to “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” it’s still a reminder that for this entire month I am… Read More

There were five of us girl cousins who grew up together, my mother’s three daughters, and her sister Daisy’s two. They were my only first cousins, and the only cousins I ever knew. Each of my parents had one sibling, and my father’s sister didn’t have any children. There probably were some second cousins on both… Read More

We are the world, We are the children, We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving. Oh, there’s a choice we’re making, We’re saving our own lives, It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me. This song, written by Michael Jackson and sung by an ad hoc… Read More

My parents didn’t keep baby books, but they did keep photo albums. The kind with the black construction paper pages. They pasted the pictures in, or else sometimes the pictures were held by those photo corners with adhesive on the back. They made an album for each of their three daughters. At some point, after… Read More