Suprise Me

The Wheat Field My grandparents emigrated from eastern Europe,  and my parents lived through a world war – my father sent overseas while my mother worked for the Army on the homefront.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home) And like all families there were skeletons in the closet,  and there were suicides on both sides that… Read More

Like any self-respecting teenage girl, I listened to Top 40 radio incessantly. As someone growing up in the shadow of Motown, of course, I loved that music, but listened to it all, and think the mid-60s were a remarkable moment in time; Motown and British invasion music flourished side by side. They couldn’t be more… Read More

“When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust man less on the same amount of income”. Said by Plato.  Einstein said: “the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax”.  Trump and his blood-suckers either don’t pay their taxes or use every trick in the… Read More

Coming of age during the Vietnam War did not mean you would be automatically drafted. If you were a privileged white boy, as I was, those less fortunate often took your place. In college, you could have used connections to get into the National Guard, as George W. Bush did to avoid active duty in… Read More

The fire was blowing along the ridgeline in our direction.  Trees were candling—igniting and throwing off firebrands--burning hunks of wood. Now the fire had jumped the vast concrete firebreak of Hwy 24 into the Oakland Hills.  Read More

Last week I looked at the hula hoop leaning lazily against my bedroom door. I looked at myself in my floor length mirror, sucked my belly in and was saddened to see that my once-slim waist was still pinchable. I decided it was time to begin a hula hoop regimen to take care of that.… Read More

I began a new job in May, 1981. I had interviewed for it for quite some time, (Walt at MDS), and had to convince two hardcore male chauvinists that I was the right person for the job, though my immediate supervisor was enthusiastic about hiring me. The two older men hired a man my age… Read More

Occasionally I learn that they are dead. Read More

My oldest sister went off to Radcliffe College in September 1962, just as I started seventh grade. I was fascinated with Radcliffe – the apple trees with circular benches around them in Radcliffe Yard, the nine old homey-looking brick dorms around the lush green Quad – and with the bustling Harvard Square area. It seemed… Read More

Asshole bosses often don’t realize they’re assholes because they’ve been assholes all their life. Like a frog who doesn’t grok that he or she is slowly parboiling in a pot of hot water, asshole bosses have usually been considered assholes since infancy. Consequently, most assholes develop early defenses to assure themselves that asshole behavior is… Read More