Suprise Me

My father was posted far away to Canton, but they promised to write.  And write he did—at the rate of four or more times a week.  And she wrote back faithfully. Read More

My best Halloween costume was the one I wore as a Pilgrim, that my mother had sewed.  It was big enough for me to wear in the Thanksgiving presentation that my nursery school gave for Thanksgiving and for several years afterword.  I loved the candy we got and the occasional homemade cupcakes.  There was one… 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

In 1967, I was one year out of college and living in Berkeley. The new wild world was all around me–long hair on everyone, patchouli scent emanating from every doorway, student protests and sidewalk jewelry shops on Telegraph Avenue, and always in the background (sometimes the foreground), rock ‘n roll, sex, and drugs. I was thrilled… Read More

At different times in my life, I have had different "tribes," but for the last 22 years it has been the choir at my synagogue. Read More

My parents bought the car in the fall of 1965. It was a 1966 model, and they custom-ordered it with all the features they (and I) wanted. I was 14 years old, a sophomore in high school, and the age to get a driver’s license in New Jersey was 17, so I clearly wasn’t going… Read More

Mr Bucco and the Ginger cat My parents’ first house was on a shady street in the Bronx bought after WW II on the GI bill.  My dad set up his medical practice on the first floor and we lived on the floor above.  (See also Fluffy, or How I Got My Dog,   Magnolia, The Story… Read More

  Who was the cat? Just a bad book baddie?  Or was he something more. Who are these false crusaders who pull the books from our shelves, who interpret their bogus meanings without credibility or reserve.   In a day of dismal rain with a fish who only swims sat our two despondent children as… Read More

Behind the Mask Like all families,  ours at times has been an unwilling friend to darkness.   A medical officer in WW II,  my dad served on troop ships bringing soldiers to theaters of war and returning with the wounded and the dead,  and on a Stateside army base during those dark days I was… Read More

This is a story about a time that I tried to forgive and did such a bad job of it that I ruined the friendship entirely. Read More