Elbow Grease “Use Ajax the foaming cleanser,  foams the dirt right down the drain. You’ll stop paying the elbow tax,  when you start cleaning with Ajax!” As a kid I loved that silly jingle!   And in fact my mother always told us to use that proverbial elbow grease in whatever we did,  and not… Read More

Book Slut,  or Why I’m in Six Book Clubs Most of my women friends are in a book club and some are even in two book clubs.  I’m in six.  I know that sounds a bit crazy,  but it really wasn’t my fault.  Here’s what happened. As a kid I loved to read,  in high… Read More

My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel The leader of a writing workshop I took years ago asked us to think back to our earliest memories and write about a place our heart remembers.   I thought of my grandmother’s hotel in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York where I spent childhood summers.  (See My Game… Read More

The Puppy in the Waiting Room  I don’t know if I really remember some of the stories my parents would tell about my naughty or my endearing childhood antics,  or if I’ve heard them so often I think I do.  But I remember how we found Fluffy in the waiting room as if it happened… Read More

A Life in Baseball Caps Although I can’t remember the specifics,  we each must have brought some head gear into the marriage.  (We eloped so surely there were no top hats or bridal veils in our luggage that day!) When we met we were both NY Yankee fans –  me legitimately so as a Bronx… Read More

Bed and Breakfast On their first wedded Valentine’s Day they had their first big fight.   Angry and hurt,  she ran out to her car before he could stop her. She drove several miles to the small country inn they had often seen from the highway. To punish him and make him worry,  she promised… Read More

Chagall’s Cows When our son was a toddler many friends began fleeing Manhattan.  They couldn’t imagine raising a child amid all the dirt and crime. “But think of the culture!”,    I’d say. Noah at 5,  wide-eyed at the Met’s Arm & Armor exhibit.   And making Purim masks at the Jewish Museum,  and model… Read More

Inaugural Poets “Tyrants fear the poet.”   Amanda Gorman JOHN KENNEDY and ROBERT FROST Inauguration Day 1961,  the handsome young president and the weathered New England poet,   both hatless in the DC January chill. “The land was ours,  before we were the land’s … ”   BILL CLINTON and MAYA ANGELOU Inauguration Day 1993,… Read More

Good Girl As a kid I gave my parents little trouble and later showed only the usual rebellious teen spirit.  (They disapproved of guys I dated,  but that’s another story). And although I’ve stood on picket lines,  argued  before the Corps of Engineers against ecologically disastrous city projects,  marched for good causes,  volunteered for a few,… Read More

Reunion A few months ago I wrote about three places,  each of which I can claim as a home town.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home,  The Lady with the Torch,  Kente Cloth) I was born in Charleston, SC yet for most of my adult life I’ve lived on Manhattan’s eastside.  But the east Bronx neighborhood of… Read More