Suprise Me

Memorial Day to the Fourth of July, a good length of time for a vacation Read More

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was no television reception on Long Beach Island. Instead, we went out after dinner for lemon ice (made with real lemons and cane sugar), and played a round of miniature golf. Read More

Please note that the word "justice" never appears in this broadside. Read More

I knew what they were doing, they were helping me out, but they were doing it in a way that allowed me to feel as if I were also helping them out. Read More

My message to my grandkids and their peers is to stand up for what you believe in and then to go out and make some noise. I will always be proud of you for any “good trouble” you create along the way. Read More

Laughing Gas and the Chestnut Tree When I was growing up we lived on a shady street in the Bronx.   Several doctors and dentists had offices on our block and my dad was one of them.   He was a GP who practiced on the ground floor of our three-story house and we lived… Read More

Sometimes you start out in one direction, only to take a lifelong detour. And that can be a great thing. Read More

I can still hear the shout…”MAKE IT SHORT”…coming from the kitchen from my mother to the barber who was about to give me a haircut upstairs in my bedroom. I was 10 years old, home sick in bed, and I couldn’t go to the barbershop. But that didn’t stop my mother from arranging for the… Read More

My mother was still in a deep depression, too tranqed out on Miltowns to take care of me, much less plan a birthday party. Dad owned a car dealership; worked six days and two nights a week. He cared but just wasn’t there. We had been in the neighborhood 2 1/2 months and I didn’t… Read More

My earliest experiences with waiting rooms were rather non-existent.  That is to say, at 3, my parents rushed me to the ER when my pinky finger was tightly lodged in the fold of a folding chair.  I remember the extraordinary pain and leaving with a splint on the finger.  If I waited, I know it… Read More