Suprise Me

Turns out I was "only" 94% eastern European Jewish ... Read More

Earth Day was thought up by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson when he, along with many Americans, became outraged by a 1969 oil spill off the California coast killing untold marine life and migratory birds. Santa Barbara, where the spill occurred, though on the opposite side of the country, is in profound respects not unlike Rappahannock… Read More

You can't go home again... or can you? Read More

Rock Concert When our son was 12 we took him to New Jersey’s Meadowlands Arena to his first rock concert – a stop on Bon Jovi’s  Slippery When Wet Tour. Later he told us Bon Jovi wasn’t really a cool band,  and going to a rock concert with your folks wasn’t cool at all.  … Read More

The Elevator By New York standards our apartment building is not very big with 16 floors and 187 apartments,  and over the years we’ve come to know many of our neighbors altho certainly not all. One day I was in the elevator when  a women I’d seen in the building – but didn’t know –… Read More

I have tried buying smaller, light weight purses to spare my back. But that will only work if I don’t overload them until they are bursting with essentials that I can’t leave home without. Or so I think. I’m going to inventory the contents of my smallish summer purse. Here are the items that are… Read More

Why? 'Cause I got to cross our street, and any other street, by myself. Read More

Martha Lupton Schneidewind was the name of my high school journalism teacher. A tall, birdlike woman, she wore wool suits and ladylike scarves and had a quick, scampering walk. She was kind, loquacious and, to my insensitive teenage self, amusingly absurd with her chirping voice and outdated phraseology. During the mid-1960s, teenage drug use was… Read More

Well, since this is a prompt about shoes, I figured that a pair of stories would be fitting. The first one is an excerpt from my book. The Red Shoes They were fire-engine red. Cherries in the snow red, million-dollar red; movie star pouty lips, just like on Mad Men red—an I-mean-business red. They had… Read More

Faith takes the form of Easter hats, nursing uniforms, Bach and carrot soup. Read More