I saw the notice on facebook, of all places, where it had been posted by the mayor of Sacramento, whom I follow. The city had just created an Ethics Commission, and all interested Sacramento residents were invited to apply. So I thought, why not? I found the application online, filled it out, and submitted it… Read More

As I often do when I am writing a Retrospect story, I started out by googling “songs about [name of prompt].” For Ageism, I could find almost nothing; apparently it isn’t a topic that songwriters are inspired by. But I did find a reference to “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” as being the first… Read More

The Gershwin song “I’ve Got A Crush on You” doesn’t really get the crush concept right. The lyrics say “You had such persistence, you wore down my resistance, I fell, and it was swell . . . . I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie.” So she’s singing to him after they get together.… Read More

What is bullying? I struggle with the term. Maybe it’s one of those “I know it when I see it” type of things. Stopbullying.gov, an official government website (it says so!), defines bullying as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. . . . Bullying includes actions… Read More

I would be remiss in my discussion of the Newark Public Library if I did not mention Philip Roth's novella Goodbye Columbus. Read More

The scamming emails seem to come in constantly. Fortunately, they generally go into my spam folder and I never even see them. Here’s one of the most recent ones: Greetings, I was searching through a local business directory when I found your profile. I am Soliciting On-Behalf of my private client who is interested in… Read More

When each of my first two kids was born, I stayed home for a year, and when I went back to the AG’s Office (part-time) they went to a daycare center. That seemed to work pretty well. But with the youngest, we thought it made sense to have someone come to our house, because she… Read More

Long-time Retrospect readers may recall my story Bridge Over Troubled Waters about how I played bridge for many years, mostly in high school and college, and my conclusion that I was a much better bridge player when I was stoned. I ended that story with the following passage: “Once I had my first baby, 32 years ago,… Read More

My nephew, a New York actor who is currently appearing in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, recently posted this story on his facebook page. I loved it so much that I wanted to share it here. With his permission, I am reprinting it exactly as he wrote it, along with one of his photos… Read More

At first I couldn’t think of any experience that would rise to the level of road rage. Annoyance with another driver who did something stupid, sure. Maybe a little cursing under my breath, or an occasional blast on my rather wimpy horn. But nothing that I would really call rage. I joked that I was… Read More