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.” Read More

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. Read More

She rings up the order. She is not wearing a mask. I am not wearing a mask. Read More

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

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?”… Read More

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, Read More