Suprise Me

Dear 21 Year Old Betsy, You pride yourself on high achievement. That is fine and working hard will serve you well throughout your life, but I assure you, life will have its twists and turns. You will not have a career in the arts, but will find enjoyment through them. Go with the flow. Learn… Read More

Looking back at August-September 2001 brings to mind the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The two weeks prior to what we now just refer to as 9/11 contained some of the best times of my life, and then, of course, the… Read More

This chance encounter in September 1974 didn't change my life, but it certainly changed the lives of the other two people involved.  Read More

Nigel understood that what he was doing in recounting his everyday activities and observations was subverting most people’s understanding of what was possible for a person with his condition. He mentioned this frequently throughout the narrative—though he never used a verb such as subvert. Read More

In the late 1960’s, I was asked to appear in front of my local Miami (Florida) Draft Board. The Board wanted me to defend my application to become a conscientious objector.  They were especially interested in quotes I used in my application.  The quotes were from Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.  This novel had… Read More

Most people associate the word “tutor” with someone hired to give individual remedial instruction in a course that one is having trouble with. However at Harvard, following the model of Oxford and Cambridge, students have tutorials in their field of concentration in their second, third, and fourth years. Sophomore tutorial is in a small group,… Read More

I suspect that had I fallen for the Mavis scam they would have done nothing and billed me for brake replacement. Read More

How and why my [grand]mother was cooking on a ranch in Montana in the summer of 1918 is one of the stories I shall never know... Read More

Baby Girl Downstairs in the open loft apartment, I hear above me my daughter and her husband and my new grandbaby  having one of those rapturous conversations that involve  cooing and squeaks soft-voiced tender words and, sweet giggles and chuckles that wrap the love  of the deep presence with and around  this moment. That Alive, … Read More

When Evelyn, an outfielder for the Rockford Peaches women’s baseball team, misses a throw to the cutoff player, manager Jimmy Dugan unloads on her in a string of very vocal invectives. Screaming, “Who’s team are you playing for?!” he reduces the young woman to tears. Evelyn’s reaction leaves a stunned Jimmy bellowing, “Are you crying?!”… Read More