Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
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View Dale Borman Fink's profile
Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
Read More
I am so grateful to Retrospect for giving me the avenue and the structure to bring these stories to life.
Read More
She wanted me to be her instrument; I just wanted to be her fearless union leader.
Read More
“Where’s the bowl, Daddy?”
“You don’t need a bowl. Watch this.”
Read More
in spite of the King's precautions, the princess, who is described as a free spirit, stumbles into...someone working at a spindle. The spindle draws a few drops of her blood...
Read More
A local jazz singer had called and asked if she might come and sing at Dad's bedside. Would he like that? And would it be all right if she brought along a male vocalist she had in mind?
Read More
When Dave returned to the phone and told me the call had been from a “John Steptoe,” I thought my roommates were playing a practical joke.
Read More
If,a guy isn’t sure what brand of bike he is riding, then you know he’s not in the fraternity. Members not only know what brand they are riding but can tell you whether it’s made of carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, or steel.
Read More
“Tell me what you read, and I can tell you what you are.” A man said, “I read Spinoza, Shakespeare, Plato and Kant.”
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As I made the ascent, I took one bite of apple at a time and challenged myself to see how long I could keep each bite in my mouth before swallowing.
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It was the scrotum of a canine, not even that of a boy or a man that got this award-winning book banned from certain schools and libraries.
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A few months into second grade, Mom said, “Mrs. Floyd was wondering if you’re having trouble seeing the board. Are you?” “No, Mommy. I can always see the board.”
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At the very first event of the reunion—a meetup for those of us who had begun participating in a class list-serve to help us get reacquainted before we met in person--I met the girl.
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She rings up the order. She is not wearing a mask. I am not wearing a mask.
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OK, I admit it. I’m not competent at assembly projects, although I do live with one gigantic IKEA wardrobe that I managed to put together by dint of much time, sweat, and profanity. I am repurposing for “Retrospect” this poem that I wrote a number of years ago. WRITER’S WORKSHOP (Deer Isle, Maine) The view…
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With Louie Dampier's basketball prowess setting the stage, I learned just how delicious it could be to eat Thin Mints and Trefoils while listening to or watching tournament basketball.
Read More
Trump was the opposite of everything represented by the big man who worked in the mine. I began with an opening verse whose phrasing was very close to the original.
Every morning at the Tower, you could see him arrive
With soft, small hands, he weighed two-forty-five
Wore an extra-long tie, stared at all the girls’ tits
And everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Mean Don
Read More
Decades before there was Google, there was “the City Desk.” It wasn’t a digital resource; it was an actual person picking up a phone and dutifully looking for an answer to any reasonable question you posed. “How does the population of Indiana (where I grew up) compare to that of our neighboring states—Ohio and Illinois?”…
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A group photo of my Fall Creek Little League team from the north side of Indianapolis in the summer of 1960 evokes a cavalcade of memories and reflections. It gives the lie to any assertion that group photographs, as a genre, are stiff or staid or a matter of meaningless formality. This one helps me…
Read More
Dan and Sally invited me in, and with their daughter, we played backgammon, and they made me a cup of tea and offered me some cookies.
Read More
To play the “Gas Station Game,” you began by taking turns choosing different brands of gas, the way you might pick players on a pickup baseball or touch-football team. He would pick first—that was just the rule—and he would always pick Standard,
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Humans are so superficial! They love the blue jay because of its striking color. Don’t they ever notice what a bully and a pest he is?
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He would hold the instrument behind his back in his left hand, the bow behind his back in the right, and play. Once he had your attention, he would proceed to lie down on the living room carpet and continue, with no loss of rhythm or resonance
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Mom probably figured, “Dale has never in his life had his own package of gum. He only gets to chew a piece now and then when someone offers him a stick.
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Instead of glancing at their cellphones or GameBoys while walking around the streets, everyone would be furtively eyeing the trees, searching for evidence of that crevice or fissure that might hold a secret treasure.
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Within the next few years, the American Academy of Pediatrics would declare that no child should have her or his recess taken away because of their classroom conduct,..
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Jacob and I had our baseball mitts with us. During my recovery, after I moved into the Family Lodge with them, we played catch on the lawn, trying not to let the ball go into the flower beds.
Read More
The book pretends to be about Philippe Petit. But its hidden subject is about how those who listen are supposed to act in the face of fear. What if there are winds swirling, and what if material objects—even the most massive ones imaginable--turn out to be anything but fixed and permanent?
Read More
The people of "La Po’lvora," and especially the children, will always remain in my heart and mind as exemplars of the utmost courtesy and compassion in a time of dire need. They showed us something much deeper than just “good manners.”
Read More
My own reconnecting with Laurel took place during the December holidays, spring breaks, or summers, the only times I was home from Harvard. I recall how special it was ...picking her up from the House family and bringing her home for the weekend.
Read More
And he cooked with a smiling twinkle,/His paring knife a-twinkle,/ His graters and ladles a-twinkle, as he prepped an amazing potage.
Read More
“Let your beard grow for 30 days.
And quietly remind yourself
That you are a son in mourning for your mother."
Read More
As I prepared to clear out my office, the authorities began to inform me and the rest of my cohort that a dread disease was raging across the land, and that we were especially prone to catch it. Few of us believed it, but as you know, one plays along.
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“There’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow, shining on the end of every day. There’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow, and tomorrow’s just a dream away.”
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My tonsils are out
A nurse speaks: “Do you want ice cream, or ice chips?”
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She didn’t seem thrown off by how forward I was, or by the fact that I had not bothered to give her any advance notice I was even going to be in her region of the country! Or by the suddenness of this entreaty following a gap of 16 years.
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Why not put aside issues of public concern and instead use my column for a private purpose: to advertise my availability as a single man?
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He traced his commitment to wearing hats to his first jury trial.
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I marvel at the significance of having an elected official there to register his dissent against a sitting President from his own party.
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We painted the door green, and then in white we painted, “Dean of Repression.” We brought the door to the plaza in front of Holyoke Center, and attracted a crowd with our kazoos, our tambourines, and our RAT songs.
Read More
I was missing those illustrated elevator rides. I was regretting that we wouldn’t be able to go to lunch together after the appointment in the third-floor cafeteria, with its salad bar, its fish baked on the premises, its hardy soups, its many dessert choices.
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I realize the only experience you’ve had of asking for help from a teacher in your entire school career came in your calculus class during senior year—and that was traumatic for you.
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Was it that kind of child-centered activity that made Anissa look back on that time, and on me, with such fondness?
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The equipment I am using...is not a traditional stationary bike: not even one of those souped-up Peloton bikes that are so highly promoted. it is one of my own road bikes, minus its rear wheel.
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Dan seemed to implicitly understand the concept of ethos, which I learned about two to three decades later. It comes from Aristotle, and it means establishing credibility, giving the audience a reason why they should listen to what you have to say.
Read More
What was it like for my neighbors to have an FBI agent knock on their doors in December 1970 and ask questions about me.
Read More
Floating somewhere unknown, however, was the fateful word gluttony, gearing up to topple me at some future moment when I might bite off more spelling splendor than I could chew.
Read More
I found myself talking during naptime one day to Rosita, the Urban Court staffer whose job was to conduct outreach for the new program. I started asking her a lot of questions and soon found myself recruited to the training.
Read More
Now it’s my turn. I have a son who comes home from college.
Read More
I made mental notes and subtle comparisons and contrasts between the Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, the Searchers, the Zombies. I
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I had learned that as a general rule in France, one could eat breakfast much more economically in a bar—and more swiftly too--than in a bistro, restaurant, or brasserie.
Read More
I don’t believe either of us campaigned on any issues, stands, or ideas. I do remember some of my slogans.
Read More
I knew Grandma Geitel as a seamstress, a maker of chicken soup with knaidelach, someone who drank hot tea in a glass with sugar cubes, and someone who liked to gossip about her eight sisters and their lives and times.
Read More
Is it really the ride boards that I miss most from the era that preceded our high-tech world? Is it the different channels that existed for making human connections? Is it the seemingly greater opportunities for adventure, even for risk-taking?
Read More
The names that populated his stories brought his remembered world to life.Hugh E. Morgan walking along Broad Street in the 1920s...John Roth, forever known to his peers as “Skunky Roth,”... Jim Parva, an umpire...who alternated between a falsetto and bass voice in calling balls and strikes...
Read More
I don’t know whether any grains of sand got into my toes, but a new idea entered my head. It was time to leave the marriage behind.
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As most language was eluding her, it was wonderful that she was able to profit from the memorization exercises of her childhood.
Read More
I watered it as faithfully as I heated up boiling water for tea—in fact, I would fetch water for my teapot and fill the watering can for the cactus in a single trip
Read More
Of navigational impairment and the kind of adventure I never intended
Prompted By Directionally Challenged
/ Stories
Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
Read More
Without Retrospect, we’d all just be bidin’ our time
Prompted By Retrospect Retrospective
/ Stories
I am so grateful to Retrospect for giving me the avenue and the structure to bring these stories to life.
Read More
Some dream of bedding a person–others just dream of a bed!
Prompted By Feathering Our Nests
/ Stories
She wanted me to be her instrument; I just wanted to be her fearless union leader.
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All aboard! Next stop, Bellefontaine!
Prompted By Planes and Trains
/ Stories
“Where’s the bowl, Daddy?”
“You don’t need a bowl. Watch this.”
Read More
About that curse, and those few drops of blood
Prompted By Favorite Fairy Tale
/ Stories
in spite of the King's precautions, the princess, who is described as a free spirit, stumbles into...someone working at a spindle. The spindle draws a few drops of her blood...
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“Everything I have is yours”
Prompted By Memorable Performances
/ Stories
A local jazz singer had called and asked if she might come and sing at Dad's bedside. Would he like that? And would it be all right if she brought along a male vocalist she had in mind?
Read More
A dream, an encounter, a magical moment (and more)
Prompted By Do You Believe in Magic?
/ Stories
When Dave returned to the phone and told me the call had been from a “John Steptoe,” I thought my roommates were playing a practical joke.
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The ancient lodge of the cyclist: “We’re old but we’re steadfast.”
Prompted By Riding a Bicycle
/ Stories
If,a guy isn’t sure what brand of bike he is riding, then you know he’s not in the fraternity. Members not only know what brand they are riding but can tell you whether it’s made of carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, or steel.
Read More
A guy asks for a pack of Lucky’s but the guy gives him Camels!
Prompted By What I Own That's Older Than I Am
/ Stories
“Tell me what you read, and I can tell you what you are.” A man said, “I read Spinoza, Shakespeare, Plato and Kant.”
Read More
Turning 40
Prompted By Special Birthdays
/ Stories
As I made the ascent, I took one bite of apple at a time and challenged myself to see how long I could keep each bite in my mouth before swallowing.
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Irresistible–but banned
Prompted By Banned Books
/ Stories
It was the scrotum of a canine, not even that of a boy or a man that got this award-winning book banned from certain schools and libraries.
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“Can you see the board?” “Yes, I can see the board.”
Prompted By The Eyes Have It
/ Stories
A few months into second grade, Mom said, “Mrs. Floyd was wondering if you’re having trouble seeing the board. Are you?” “No, Mommy. I can always see the board.”
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First the teeth. Then the car. Then the girl.
Prompted By What My Mother Told Me
/ Stories
At the very first event of the reunion—a meetup for those of us who had begun participating in a class list-serve to help us get reacquainted before we met in person--I met the girl.
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A New Hope
Prompted By Pandemic, Year Three
/ Stories
She rings up the order. She is not wearing a mask. I am not wearing a mask.
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A new look at the tools of a writer’s craft
Prompted By Some Assembly Required
/ Stories
OK, I admit it. I’m not competent at assembly projects, although I do live with one gigantic IKEA wardrobe that I managed to put together by dint of much time, sweat, and profanity. I am repurposing for “Retrospect” this poem that I wrote a number of years ago. WRITER’S WORKSHOP (Deer Isle, Maine) The view…
Read More
Of Fast Breaks and Thin Mints
Prompted By Guilty Pleasures
/ Stories
With Louie Dampier's basketball prowess setting the stage, I learned just how delicious it could be to eat Thin Mints and Trefoils while listening to or watching tournament basketball.
Read More
The birth of a country story-song
Prompted By One Song That Moves Me
/ Stories
Trump was the opposite of everything represented by the big man who worked in the mine. I began with an opening verse whose phrasing was very close to the original.
Every morning at the Tower, you could see him arrive
With soft, small hands, he weighed two-forty-five
Wore an extra-long tie, stared at all the girls’ tits
And everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Mean Don
Read More
Call the City Desk!
Prompted By Newspapers
/ Stories
Decades before there was Google, there was “the City Desk.” It wasn’t a digital resource; it was an actual person picking up a phone and dutifully looking for an answer to any reasonable question you posed. “How does the population of Indiana (where I grew up) compare to that of our neighboring states—Ohio and Illinois?”…
Read More
The Boys of Summer (of 1960)
Prompted By Group Photos
/ Stories
A group photo of my Fall Creek Little League team from the north side of Indianapolis in the summer of 1960 evokes a cavalcade of memories and reflections. It gives the lie to any assertion that group photographs, as a genre, are stiff or staid or a matter of meaningless formality. This one helps me…
Read More
A cup of tea, a game of backgammon, and memories of Mao
Prompted By Snowy Days
/ Stories
Dan and Sally invited me in, and with their daughter, we played backgammon, and they made me a cup of tea and offered me some cookies.
Read More
On the way to Toledo
Prompted By Highways and Byways
/ Stories
To play the “Gas Station Game,” you began by taking turns choosing different brands of gas, the way you might pick players on a pickup baseball or touch-football team. He would pick first—that was just the rule—and he would always pick Standard,
Read More
Greetings from Skampy and Bucko and the whole family
Prompted By Holiday Letters
/ Stories
Humans are so superficial! They love the blue jay because of its striking color. Don’t they ever notice what a bully and a pest he is?
Read More
And now for an unexpected interruption of logical sequence
Prompted By Comic Relief
/ Stories
He would hold the instrument behind his back in his left hand, the bow behind his back in the right, and play. Once he had your attention, he would proceed to lie down on the living room carpet and continue, with no loss of rhythm or resonance
Read More
Just a pack of gum for Chanukah
Prompted By An Attitude of Gratitude
/ Stories
Mom probably figured, “Dale has never in his life had his own package of gum. He only gets to chew a piece now and then when someone offers him a stick.
Read More
A more rustic form of “chain letter”
Prompted By Chain Letters
/ Stories
Instead of glancing at their cellphones or GameBoys while walking around the streets, everyone would be furtively eyeing the trees, searching for evidence of that crevice or fissure that might hold a secret treasure.
Read More
The time I didn’t stand up
Prompted By Regrets
/ Stories
Within the next few years, the American Academy of Pediatrics would declare that no child should have her or his recess taken away because of their classroom conduct,..
Read More
Love, baseball, and literature in a time of cancer
Prompted By Lemons to Lemonade
/ Stories
Jacob and I had our baseball mitts with us. During my recovery, after I moved into the Family Lodge with them, we played catch on the lawn, trying not to let the ball go into the flower beds.
Read More
“Terrifying and beautiful,” in pen and ink and oil paint
Prompted By Children's Books
/ Stories
The book pretends to be about Philippe Petit. But its hidden subject is about how those who listen are supposed to act in the face of fear. What if there are winds swirling, and what if material objects—even the most massive ones imaginable--turn out to be anything but fixed and permanent?
Read More
“Como ameneciste?”
Prompted By Manners
/ Stories
The people of "La Po’lvora," and especially the children, will always remain in my heart and mind as exemplars of the utmost courtesy and compassion in a time of dire need. They showed us something much deeper than just “good manners.”
Read More
One child’s path from marginalization to equality
Prompted By Inequality
/ Stories
My own reconnecting with Laurel took place during the December holidays, spring breaks, or summers, the only times I was home from Harvard. I recall how special it was ...picking her up from the House family and bringing her home for the weekend.
Read More
The Slurping of the Soup
Prompted By Pet Peeves
/ Stories
And he cooked with a smiling twinkle,/His paring knife a-twinkle,/ His graters and ladles a-twinkle, as he prepped an amazing potage.
Read More
A shave to remember
Prompted By Haircuts
/ Stories
“Let your beard grow for 30 days.
And quietly remind yourself
That you are a son in mourning for your mother."
Read More
A Letter from the TRANSITIONAL RETIREMENT ZONE
Prompted By One Year of the Pandemic
/ Stories
As I prepared to clear out my office, the authorities began to inform me and the rest of my cohort that a dread disease was raging across the land, and that we were especially prone to catch it. Few of us believed it, but as you know, one plays along.
Read More
A great big, beautiful tomorrow—and a cherished yesterday
Prompted By Advertising Jingles and Slogans
/ Stories
“There’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow, shining on the end of every day. There’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow, and tomorrow’s just a dream away.”
Read More
Tonsillectomy, Age Three
Prompted By First Memory
/ Stories
My tonsils are out
A nurse speaks: “Do you want ice cream, or ice chips?”
Read More
A picnic with Velma
Prompted By Reconnecting
/ Stories
She didn’t seem thrown off by how forward I was, or by the fact that I had not bothered to give her any advance notice I was even going to be in her region of the country! Or by the suddenness of this entreaty following a gap of 16 years.
Read More
The Valentine’s Day When I Turned My Opinion Column into a Personal Ad
Prompted By Valentine's Day
/ Stories
Why not put aside issues of public concern and instead use my column for a private purpose: to advertise my availability as a single man?
Read More
“Get yourself a hat so you look like somebody!”
Prompted By Hats
/ Stories
He traced his commitment to wearing hats to his first jury trial.
Read More
Counter-Inaugural 1973
Prompted By Inaugurations
/ Stories
I marvel at the significance of having an elected official there to register his dissent against a sitting President from his own party.
Read More
Who wrote the Book of War?
Prompted By Good Trouble
/ Stories
We painted the door green, and then in white we painted, “Dean of Repression.” We brought the door to the plaza in front of Holyoke Center, and attracted a crowd with our kazoos, our tambourines, and our RAT songs.
Read More
An art exhibition during a pandemic
Prompted By Art and Art Museums
/ Stories
I was missing those illustrated elevator rides. I was regretting that we wouldn’t be able to go to lunch together after the appointment in the third-floor cafeteria, with its salad bar, its fish baked on the premises, its hardy soups, its many dessert choices.
Read More
Seeking help is a good thing! Self-reliance? Not so much.
Prompted By Letter to My Younger Self
/ Stories
I realize the only experience you’ve had of asking for help from a teacher in your entire school career came in your calculus class during senior year—and that was traumatic for you.
Read More
The most wonderful “thank-you”–without those words ever being spoken
Prompted By Thank You
/ Stories
Was it that kind of child-centered activity that made Anissa look back on that time, and on me, with such fondness?
Read More
A different form of binge-watching
Prompted By What Are You Bingeing?
/ Stories
The equipment I am using...is not a traditional stationary bike: not even one of those souped-up Peloton bikes that are so highly promoted. it is one of my own road bikes, minus its rear wheel.
Read More
Riding in the dark: a high school memory
Prompted By Hello Darkness
/ Stories
Dan seemed to implicitly understand the concept of ethos, which I learned about two to three decades later. It comes from Aristotle, and it means establishing credibility, giving the audience a reason why they should listen to what you have to say.
Read More
“Full field investigation”
Prompted By Interviews
/ Stories
What was it like for my neighbors to have an FBI agent knock on their doors in December 1970 and ask questions about me.
Read More
Gluttonous for glory–spelling glory, that is!
Prompted By Spelling
/ Stories
Floating somewhere unknown, however, was the fateful word gluttony, gearing up to topple me at some future moment when I might bite off more spelling splendor than I could chew.
Read More
We have no problems, mon. Only situations.
Prompted By Volunteering
/ Stories
I found myself talking during naptime one day to Rosita, the Urban Court staffer whose job was to conduct outreach for the new program. I started asking her a lot of questions and soon found myself recruited to the training.
Read More
Home from college
Prompted By Pandemic Holidays
/ Stories
Now it’s my turn. I have a son who comes home from college.
Read More
Richard to the Rescue
Prompted By Fads and Trends
/ Stories
I made mental notes and subtle comparisons and contrasts between the Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, the Searchers, the Zombies. I
Read More
Not just the very first customers–we were the only customers!
Prompted By Random Acts of Kindness
/ Stories
I had learned that as a general rule in France, one could eat breakfast much more economically in a bar—and more swiftly too--than in a bistro, restaurant, or brasserie.
Read More
There’s a lot of that going around lately
Prompted By Ghosts of Elections Past
/ Stories
I don’t believe either of us campaigned on any issues, stands, or ideas. I do remember some of my slogans.
Read More
Joey’s button
Prompted By Buttons, Pins, and Badges
/ Stories
I knew Grandma Geitel as a seamstress, a maker of chicken soup with knaidelach, someone who drank hot tea in a glass with sugar cubes, and someone who liked to gossip about her eight sisters and their lives and times.
Read More
An Unforgettable Ride
Prompted By Life Before Computers
/ Stories
Is it really the ride boards that I miss most from the era that preceded our high-tech world? Is it the different channels that existed for making human connections? Is it the seemingly greater opportunities for adventure, even for risk-taking?
Read More
The Phone Call
Prompted By Final Farewell
/ Stories
The names that populated his stories brought his remembered world to life.Hugh E. Morgan walking along Broad Street in the 1920s...John Roth, forever known to his peers as “Skunky Roth,”... Jim Parva, an umpire...who alternated between a falsetto and bass voice in calling balls and strikes...
Read More
A Walk on the Beach
Prompted By Rites of Passage
/ Stories
I don’t know whether any grains of sand got into my toes, but a new idea entered my head. It was time to leave the marriage behind.
Read More
Reciting by heart–and from the heart
Prompted By Brain Games
/ Stories
As most language was eluding her, it was wonderful that she was able to profit from the memorization exercises of her childhood.
Read More
Roselle’s Cactus
Prompted By The Garden
/ Stories
I watered it as faithfully as I heated up boiling water for tea—in fact, I would fetch water for my teapot and fill the watering can for the cactus in a single trip
Read More
