My parents met in 1953 at the Garden House Hotel in Hurleyville, NY, where they were both employed for the summer. My father was a program director/performer in charge of entertainment. My mom, who’d done everything she could to get out of spending the whole summer in the Catskills away from her friends in the…
Probability of Winning
My brother talked me into joining his fantasy football league last year. “You’re ready,” he said. “And you’ll love it.” On the face of it, those are funny statements. Up until maybe ten years ago, I knew nothing about football. Other than the marching band, nothing anyone did on that field made any sense to…
Grave Matters
Once upon a time, people stayed put. They lived and died in roughly the same geographical area in which they’d been born. It made sense to bury them there as well, where family and friends who’d celebrated and mourned with the individual during his or her lifetime could stop by the cemetery on holidays and…
Write Boldly Badly!
Are you a good enough reader to write badly? I mean, really, really badly. If you are, it’s time to prove it by submitting to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This fiendishly alluring competition asks contestants to create a first sentence to an utter bomb of a book. With enough skill, that sentence will equal or…
Mother’s Day
Charlotte is taking inventory of the photos on my first floor. At three, she lives far enough away that I don’t see her nearly often enough. But this also means there’s always something new to discover at Gigi’s house. “Mommy, Aunt Sof, TomTom,” she ticks off, pointing to a photo on the shelf above my…
Stuff
Some of the stuff we’ve saved over the years is laughing at us. Those keepsakes from our kids’ lives that we stashed away to pass down to them? The ones we envisioned handing over as forever-memories? If you tiptoe past that leaning tower o’ stuff, you’ll hear a soft chortle, because the stuff knows the…
Sign of a Time
Back in the late 1980s, I bought a pottery mug during a lunch break from my summer clerking position at a Baltimore law firm. Harborplace, then a vibrant destination filled with artisans and food stalls, was only a quick walk away from my office. That’s where I found my mug waiting for me. The rounded…
