On March 10, 2008, I had my annual mammogram. Never a pleasant experience, but tolerable, and I dutifully went every year without giving it much thought. That year was different. A few days afterwards the imaging center called me and said they wanted to do another mammogram of my right breast, so on March 20… Read More

The first time this prompt, “What We Watched,” appeared, I wrote a story about the television shows I loved growing up, TV shows of my youth. That was the very first story I posted on Retrospect, and it started me on a wonderful adventure which has continued through 60 stories so far, with many more yet to… Read More

Inspired by John Zussman's republishing his story from the 2017 prompt "Let's Put On a Show." Read More

1967. The Summer of Love was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was going to turn sixteen at the end of August — which meant that I had been claiming to be sixteen for months. I thought I was very sophisticated and wise. Retrospect readers may have already seen… Read More

Story from 2017, moved to this prompt in response to John's story Great Performances. Read More

In the summer of 1965 I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I was turning 14 at the end of the summer, and it was my second year at a leftist work camp called Lincoln Farm. One of my favorite aspects of camp was the singing we did — at campfires,… Read More

Memories of three beach trips that I hadn't thought about for years triggered by a Retrospect prompt. Read More

Paul Simon’s song “Father and Daughter” starts out “If you leap awake / In the mirror of a bad dream…” This reminds me of my favorite story about my father, which I have told to my children numerous times. When I was little, I had a recurring nightmare about a witch chasing me. I think… Read More

Giving the graduates a mix tape of advice Read More

Memorial Day weekend in Sacramento is most notable for the Dixieland Jazz Jubilee, which has occurred every year since 1974. It is an amazing four days of music and fun, with bands from all over the country and the world who make the pilgrimage to northern California to play traditional jazz. I didn’t discover it until… Read More