It’s 1964. Imagine a housewife doing the family’s laundry in the basement of a modest house. Just as the washing machine rumbles into action, muffling all other sounds, she thinks she hears the telephone ringing upstairs. Because her sister is expecting a baby at any moment, the woman races to the wall-mounted phone in the […]
Facebook’s Fatal Flaw Read More »
I should have known better. I was, after all, twenty. But there I was, watching the 1968 Democratic National Convention when I saw professional football player Roosevelt Grier, sitting among the California delegation, knitting. I was stunned. “OMG,” I gasped decades before the phrase had been coined. “He’s not just a jock. He has interests
I have questions, questions that have haunted me for years. And I want answers. Oh, I know I could find the answers with a smidge of research. But I am lazy and suspect the answers, logical, scientific, historical, economic, and socio-political based as they may be, are faulty, incomplete, and likely conspiracy-driven by drag queens.
They say, “You can’t go home again.” But you can. Especially if you’ve never been there before. It only took me 75 years. My father, born in 1912, was from Germany’s Hartz Mountains. As a man in his early twenties, he wrote a letter to a cousin outside the country condemning the rise of Adolf
When I moved to Mexico, I made a point of having access to American TV. I wanted to be able to watch college and professional football. I wanted coverage of my hometown’s local news. As a cinephile and follower of all things in the World of Entertainment, I had to attend the major award shows
Loops and Lags and TV Gags Read More »
Picture this. A woman touring the Louvre comes to the Mona Lisa. Her view of the painting, however, is blocked by numerous heads. All she can see is La Gioconda’s forehead and parted hair. She waits her turn to step forward for a closer look. Suddenly, a young woman, more a girl than woman, darts
The Sins Of Selfies Read More »
A friend—we met in college—recently retired and moved back to his hometown. Excited about his relocation, he invited me to visit, to see his origins. Jerry and I hadn’t been close as adults. We communicated sporadically and visited each other when convenient, but, for me, it never was a priority. He was, in my mind,
The Clueless Tour Guide Read More »
“Zit. Call me Zit. My friends call me Zit.” “No. I won’t. That’s disgusting,” the high school teacher replied. “It says here your name is Zebadiah Taylor.” She pointed at the attendance sheet in her hand. “My initials spell Zit. Everyone calls me that. Even my parents.” “Well, I’m not.” Tonya Stern shook her head.
Nicknames And Pronouns And Choices, Oh My Read More »
That looks like an airline reservation confirmation code, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. It is, however, one of my favorite vanity plates. It was on an expensive car, the make I’ve forgotten, the kind that wealthy country club folk drive. People with names like Thurston Howell III. It took several minutes of deciphering, but I
Patrick O’Rourke’s smile was as white as an Irish Easter lily, his eyes radiant blue like the Irish Sea glistening in the sun. He was, as his name implied, Irish through-and-through. His pale skin was as pure as a freshly laundered Irish linen bedsheet. But the Catholic twenty-six-year-old’s black hair wasn’t particularly Gaelic and, typical
