Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, Mongols, Sikhs, Afghans, and British all crossed or vied for the Pass. Still to come would be its incarnation as part of the “hippie trail” to India, and its role as a supply route for the war in Afghanistan.
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View Khati Hendry's profile
Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, Mongols, Sikhs, Afghans, and British all crossed or vied for the Pass. Still to come would be its incarnation as part of the “hippie trail” to India, and its role as a supply route for the war in Afghanistan.
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Meeting my buddies in Times Square on New Years Eve--what could go wrong?
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Snow had fallen overnight, and when we arrived at Skyline, the road was closed. The trip was ruined.
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September was my birthday, it was the start of a new school year, the sticky summer was through, the air was crisp and I might even have some new clothes. Of course it was my favorite.
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We were told that we would be changed by our medical training. Our tender idealism would be transformed by long hours and hard work.
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For me, it was the first decent job I had even though it was only over the Christmas rush.
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There were milk and cookies afterwards.
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Was it a town, a hamlet, an existing site? All we knew was that it had appeared on some old marriage and birth records as far back I could trace my Scottish relatives, and we wanted to see it.
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2024 is the 80th anniversary of D-day, the joint Allied invasion on the beaches of Normandy to liberate France from the Nazis.
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I had a vague familiarity with the digeridoo and some of the paintings. What to expect?
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I found myself being seduced by hand-crafted dolls from different lands over the years, finding serendipitous treasures in flea markets, souvenir shops, street vendors, and craft markets.
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It promised to be a busy weekend. Sally had invited her dad to Oakland for Fleet Week and the dance card was full with things a veteran from the greatest-generation might like: a visit to Alameda Naval Station, the Blue Angels flyovers, a Bay cruise.
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My mother was out on some errand, and Susan asked if she could have a cup of coffee. That seemed important to her (we didn't understand the caffeine imperative yet), so my older sister and I, who had never actually made coffee, tried to rise to the occasion.
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It is remarkable how you really could carry everything you needed.
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My father was posted far away to Canton, but they promised to write. And write he did—at the rate of four or more times a week. And she wrote back faithfully.
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It was stressful to have the sale as it reminded me of the pain of packing everything up and moving. But it is a pleasure to see people walk off with their new treasures.
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At best sports were a minor part of what really mattered in life.
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Earlier, life seemed to be an endless acquisition of information and experience. More and more stuffed into my brain. At some point, that balance seems to have tipped into forgetting more than remembering.
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My mother always had a fondness for the scroll of hand-painted figures, dressed in traditional Chinese clothes, carrying produce or hawking other wares. They were framed in pieces and hung on the wall along with other mementoes from her time in Peking (now Beijing) in the late 1940’s. She lived in a neighborhood of classic…
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I was in the high school class of 1968, indelibly stamped. When that year was still the future, it represented that border between childhood dependency and my real life, whatever that might mean. I had known nothing but childhood, but I felt ready for things to turn.
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In the summer, the dense greenery along the Potomac River covers houses, streets, and history. We moved to the area in 1966 and slowly discovered some unexpected treasures--the towpath along the abandoned C & O canal, Sycamore Island, the old settlement of Cabin John, the Clara Barton house. The Glen Echo Amusement Park.
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Crossing the bottleneck of a bridge required maneuvering through a tangle of feeder lanes, timing the rush hour, and most of all having good traffic karma.
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I remember when sex seemed like the border between childhood and becoming an adult, shrouded in mystery and myth, perhaps wonderful and exciting but also dangerous and distasteful. Information was scant in my middle-America 1950’s childhood, but my mother managed to pre-empt more unreliable sources by explaining the basic “facts of life” in mildly appalling…
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A local brewery named itself “Bad Tattoo”, a good description of far too many skin decorations.
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There was surely some apprehension people felt while waiting for medical care, but people often chatted with the front desk or each other and in a small town, it wasn’t unusual to run into someone you knew.
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Beliefs about women’s health and the moon are particularly strong.
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Maybe my mother did not have the shopping gene or never shook off the Depression and Protestant ethos, but she seems to have passed that shopping ambivalence on to me.
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How did I happen to read that book? I don’t remember anyone giving it to me or seeing it in the house, so most likely it was in a school library, maybe thoughtfully displayed by a librarian, or maybe just calling to me from a shelf. In any case it was not like anything I had read and it spoke powerfully to my own adolescent yearning to make sense of existence.
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I still have a pang in my gut crossing any border, even when it should be benign. Anything could happen in that liminal area.
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Instead of the usual “my name is” and “how are you” basics, I learned how to explain how many pills to take how often, with or without food, with cautions about dizziness, upset stomach or other side effects.
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We managed to see our share of the Saturday kids’ programs, endless varieties of Westerns, the stereotypical Ozzie and Harriet sitcoms, variety shows and increasingly, the news.
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My father was always a bit of a food adventurist. He liked vinegar on broccoli, Brussels sprouts and spinach, and potato salad with vinegar and onions instead of mayonnaise.
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Family and friends, returning to the center.
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Could it really be that simple?
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At last I was successfully disentangling from a bad relationship with an incipiently psychotic partner and needed to move out, now. A colleague at work turned out to be the landlady of an available place, not far from our community health clinic, and I grabbed it.
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We asked what they needed most and they requested a transportation vehicle. Not an ambulance—that would be too much of a target.
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Another friend had a bumper sticker—“Live simply that others may simply live”—that still seems like good advice.
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It was easy to lose focus and dither the time away, getting lost in e-mail or reports, working through the day without a break. I decided to prioritize finding time to physically leave the office at least once a day.
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And like magic, the water didn’t crash over us and tumble us around, it just lifted us up and then down, our toes touching the sand again. It was wonderful.
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I developed an awe of the men (I never saw a woman) who worked for CalTrans at all hours and conditions, keeping the roads open.
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We felt a bit deceived—after all, we only agreed to take him because she had begged—but he had clearly had a traumatic adolescence and changed since his owner had died. We still took him in, the damaged goods, and named him “Jack”.
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A hippie, a priest and Henry Kissinger were in an airplane......
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Turning sixteen was a coming-of-age ritual. Not a sweet sixteen party—getting a driver’s license! Having wheels in mid-twentieth century US meant mobility, freedom, unsupervised hanging out with friends, romance.
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I needed something more reliable. My hours were irregular, public transportation spotty, and I lived too far from the hospital to walk. And it rained and snowed. Any car that ran would do. That, plus my general ambivalence, is probably why my first car was such a clunker.
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I had already reasoned out that, looking at the evidence, there was no way that Santa could make it to all the boys and girls around the world in one night, not to mention the chimney issue or the problematic Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy visits.
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Telegraph Avenue. Wonderful! Full of cheap eats, head shops, bookstores, hippies and students and life.
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Frustration has been my strongest trigger, especially from interaction with systems I dislike.
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Halfway up, I got stuck. I couldn’t see how to get up or down, splayed across the cliff, hanging onto tiny stone ledge finger and toe holds.
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Little songs would run on endless loops as I concentrated. It was a sort of fuzzy daydream state, where only vague thoughts of work or the future hovered at the periphery, kept at bay by my mantra of the day. “Doing the garden, pulling the weeks, who could ask for more?”
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Two years ago, my grandniece Eliza Judy was born. I haven’t met her yet, but the postings show a smiling and adorable little girl, hugging her stuffed animals, running with toddler steps, dressed in a cute Halloween costume, laughing when parents or grandparents interact with her. She is healthy, well-off and well-loved, bright and radiating hope for the future.
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Nancy, our new office manager, was pushing hard on everyone in the clinic to sign up for a rafting trip. She had gone with the same outfit before and assured us it would be wonderful. We would all simply blast off in carpools after work on Friday for the 7- hour trip to the Klamath…
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“You will always be friends” the counselor told us. We were too entwined and besides, she had seen it repeatedly in the women’s community, a fluidity of friends and lovers staying connected despite everything. I said nothing but promised myself, “Oh no, we won’t”.
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Veterans were synonymous with WWII when I was a child, the good war against the unimaginably evil Hitler but also the horror of the atom bomb. I don’t think I was the only one who wished for “world peace” when I blew out birthday candles or participated in student United Nations.
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The library was on the basement floor of that old 1934 two-story dark brick building in a small windowless room, maybe 12 by 15 feet. Its walls were lined with bookshelves, neatly organized into the Dewey decimal system
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Imagine being in that stadium with thousands of other university students and faculty, all roused up, politically aware, wanting a path forward. The emotional energy was contagious and overwhelming. Surely the concerns of so many people coming together could not be denied.
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Fireman Phil came to Marble Elementary School. We first-graders were gathered in the school gym, seated cross-legged on the floor. What makes a fire? How do you stop it? Do you throw water on oil (no!)? This is a fire extinguisher. If you are on fire, don’t run–drop and roll. It’s been over 60 years…
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The fire was blowing along the ridgeline in our direction. Trees were candling—igniting and throwing off firebrands--burning hunks of wood. Now the fire had jumped the vast concrete firebreak of Hwy 24 into the Oakland Hills.
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Monsoons are more than just rainy days. They are the wet season, the dry season’s counterpoint. The rains are intense downpours, not drizzly affairs, and they sweep in ferociously. They are the annual water renewal that makes life possible. Of course, that is changing along with the rest of the climate, but still. The small…
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People at San Francisco General Hospital emergency room had T shirts printed up that included the tag line: “as real as it gets”. That pretty much summed up the big urban County Hospital experience where I was a medical student. The ER was where lives in crisis ended up—there, or in prison, or sometimes both.…
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Was there anyone on the panel who could not give equal weight to the testimony of a police officer?
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The UFW had some simple housing available in a local apartment building in Calexico, where I had stayed the first time. It was pretty bleak, and soon one of my union contacts offered that I could stay at his place on the other side of the border, in Mexicali.
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Nighttime in our community hospital was something to be dreaded when I was a resident. It meant I was on overnight call, following a regular day’s work. The hospital emptied of the day staff and visitors, leaving limited lab and imaging services, fewer nurses, a couple of physicians and emergency room staff–tag, you’re “it”. When…
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My mother sometimes asked when she started looking old. I notice I look a lot more like her every day.
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In 1989, there were several reports of tourists being killed while visiting game parks in Kenya. When people found out that we were about to travel to Africa, they asked with alarm, “Should you really go?”
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When people ask me where I’m from, it gets complicated. I say, “Well, we moved around a lot. I grew up mostly in Michigan.” However, Michigan was just where my nuclear family lived on and off when not overseas, there were no relatives nearby, and we moved away before I finished high school. In fact,…
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You can see a great distance from the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. The view is quite spectacular as it winds along the crests of the mountains, rolling up and down with the terrain; the wide path at the top of the wall turns into irregular stairsteps to accommodate the undulations and is punctuated…
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In the universe of trauma, it seems pretty trivial to describe a childhood horror movie. Looking back now, it is hard to believe that I would be terrified by the old sci-fi low-budget 1950’s film, “The Blob”. I was surprised to learn from Wikipedia that it was Steve McQueen’s acting debut, and music was by…
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It was our friend Jack who recommended Aidan to us. We needed someone to paint the house interior, and he assured us that Aidan was the best. He was also an artist, a perfectionist, and a quixotic Irish fellow who presented us with a four-page estimate in hand-written calligraphy. Yes, he was available, and yes,…
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It was the dark winter solstice of December 2020. Everything was shut down because of COVID, and vaccines were a mere glimmer. Life was suspended. Work had stopped abruptly one day in March—I was too old to risk showing up in person, and virtual options were poor—so de facto retirement came more suddenly than I…
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There was a phone with buttons for hold and intercom, and a blocky computer console sitting squarely in the middle of the desk. I think it was a Dell. The font was clunky and there were no graphics. This was my first computer.
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We were put on a bus, blindfolded, and driven around country roads this way and that. At some point, groups of four were let out of the bus, given a map, and told to find our way back. We were all fifth graders in East Lansing public school and this was part of the curriculum…
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Although I don’t look forward to going to the dentist, I do appreciate the importance of the work–maybe because I have always had dental issues, from cavities to crowns, partial plates and bridges to implants, orthodontia to tooth extraction. Much of it is thanks to genetics, which forgot to provide me a full secondary set…
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We were looking for somewhere to buy a boom box to play CD music for our elopement ceremony in Niagara Falls, and someone suggested Canadian Tire. Incredulous, we had to ask why an automotive service center would have such a thing and were met with an amused look and explanation that the store carried much…
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Big error: I hadn’t actually checked the recipe before the day of the meal.
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But in 1961 our family was headed for East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) for a two-year stint and I was now eleven-going-on-twelve. For me, it was an escape into the unknown, a reprieve from the prospect of junior high, and I was certain that all my frames of reference would shift.
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The house looked sort of lived-in, and we loved it, eclectic and thrown-together though it was.
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Are people merely “consumers” seeking to get the best deal from health “providers” based on market factors (and their satisfaction is important so they will keep being customers?) Or are they just people needing to heal?
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It was a fall afternoon when Ron and his friend appeared with the acid and what the hell, we had nothing better to do.
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Don't you hate the state of late?
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There were songs for the sisters, the grandchildren, the in-laws, and the whole “cast”. We thought they were pretty clever.
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." – Albert Einstein
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They say you never forget how to ride—it is, after all, “just like riding a bicycle”.
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Sally gallantly offered that I could take the MG, but I wouldn’t consider it—far too untrustworthy to risk taking over the bridge.
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The downside of a house of mementoes is that it is hard to throw anything out. I think the oldest thing I have is something that eluded getting thrown out by several generations, but I don’t really know its story. This is all I know.
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In the Before time, every evening the news god spoke.
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I write because Suzy Underwood put out a plea to my college class listserv for stories about interviews, and I thought I had a good one.
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On my first day, it was show time. I nervously knocked on the door and entered to find a pleasant young man who listened patiently as I introduced myself in halting Spanish and asked what had brought him to the clinic.
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As my mother descended into dementia, her letters stopped, and we kept in touch through phone calls, increasingly with my father alone. By the time my mother died, he had become my confidante and mutual support system.
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I have spent years of my life trying to come to terms with on-call sleep deprivation.
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I felt uncomfortable packing the book and uncomfortable leaving it behind.
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My father was leaving the lecture hall when he stepped out of the doorway and a snowball—or more accurately, an ice ball—came hurling from the side and hit him directly across his open eye.
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So proud you are all contributing members of society.
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The plan was to recruit male volunteers to be “sold”, for a term of some hours, at a “slave auction”. It was 1967, in the middle of civil rights protests.
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The Muslim staff that worked in our house protected the gardener and his Hindu family, temporary refugees in their own land.
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My whole world lies waiting
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We could hear dull, throaty roars in the distance. We were more than happy, thank you very much Mr. Guard, to be accompanied across the field. Would they be willing to have us take their picture the next day, once there was light, if we gave them a copy? Indeed, they would.
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It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a light of hope.
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“What happened?” The woman in charge of Introduction to Clinical Medicine seemed concerned. I had failed the course’s written exam. “I don’t know.” And really, I didn’t. I had never failed an exam. We second-year medical students had been farmed out in small groups to assorted ophthalmologists and ENT physicians in practice to learn eye…
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Unlike the barracks and prefabs we had lived in, the modest new house in East Lansing had a righteous Midwestern full, unfinished basement. Wooden staircase near the back door, cinder block walls, divided in two sides. Washing machine and dryer, furnace, storage, and tools on one side; if we had canned, the fruits and vegetables…
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We are adaptable, smart in many ways, and know that what should be done is also technically possible. Is it enough?
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You never like that stove. You don’t know what it meant.
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I’m sure you would not guess it, if you guessed a long, long while, so I’ll take it out and put it on—it’s a great big Brownie smile!
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The routine was: Turn on water and collect in bucket until warm—wet self—turn off water—lather and wash—turn on water to rinse—end!
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I always liked the way my dad played the piano, inventing arrangements from a fake book and not just playing scripted sheet music. He loved interesting chords, with a just enough dissonance. There were certain tunes he played often, refining the sound over time, drawing heavily from the Great American Song Book and jazz standards. …
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I would go to bed half dressed in a tee shirt, and at the first sound of the alarm, quietly roll my legs over the edge of my top bunk and slide onto the floor, already standing, trying not to disturb the roommate.
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“Hi mom, it’s me, calling from Sweden.” This will have to be short. It is expensive. “When was Grandma born?” “What was her father’s name?” I need some crumb of information if we are to have any luck tracking down relatives, and this was all unplanned. 1897. Carl Corsberg, from ”Smaland”. That will have to…
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Won't you please move closer? Now, say, "Cheese"!
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“It’s snowing!” And all the kids in Mrs. Kennerson’s first grade class jumped up from our desk chairs as one, rushing excitedly to the window. Outside, flurries spun and danced in the wind, and for that moment, it was the most important thing in the world.
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Memories of when I lived on Sumac Ridge (with apologies to Robert Frost).
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We had a whole ten days off, a fiftieth birthday to celebrate, a new telescope to try out, and a good grasp of Spanish. A map. No GPS, smart phone, or travel internet then.
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A woman was “looking at the corn” when she blew a stop sign and T-boned our car.
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I'm not really someone who makes new year's resolutions, but this year Sally announced she plans to learn to play the old accordion she bought on a whim years ago.
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Actually, sometimes I really like getting a letter.
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When I started thinking about this prompt, I started a list of all the reasons I had to be grateful, and soon found there was a true embarrassment of riches. When stacked up next to myriad reasons to be dismayed, angry, and depressed, an old saying came to mind: “I guess a man (sic) is…
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All efforts to improve health are based on helping the body to heal itself, be it through emotional support, listening, suggestions for nutrition or activity, medications or surgeries, self-care or connection to a healthy environment.
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With apologies to Ms Franklin
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I had a glimpse of the future at East Lansing Junior High--and it didn't look good. It seemed like a reprieve when our family moved to the other side of the world. I wasn't sorry.
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Once it got dark, the kids would hit the residential streets in roving bands gone wild, armed with big bags, running to each porchlight to cry, “Trickertreat!" at the door.
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At age 92, there was no treatment for him; usually the end would come from some infection his blood cells could no longer fight off. When? Maybe a month or two, max. Maybe tomorrow. No one knew. He got very quiet and then said, “Oh. I guess I had better make some phone calls.”
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The traffic going into London for the morning commute is insane. The roads in London are impossible (and no GPS then). Finding the cute little hotel in the Bloomsbury District would have been a challenge if we were awake and oriented; we were not.
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I just remember it was the girls crowding around my dad, and it was a very special time. Each week, he put aside his work and read us a chapter.
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Meals were a challenge when I was a resident on hospital rotations. There were no official breaks, no lunch, dinner, or breakfast hours, just work that had to be done and rounds to attend. Sure, there were cafeterias with overcooked steam trays of food, but they weren’t open 24/7, and weren’t free. Finding a moment…
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It is not foreign terrorists who invaded the US Capitol, corrupted democracy, attacked the press, blocked voting, tried to install an unelected autocrat, attacked public health, imposed punishments with religious zealotry against women, or damaged the rule of law.
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It was clear I needed a job. Turning twenty, literate (two years of college behind me), energetic, and flexible—surely this would not be too hard. But it turned out I knew nothing about finding work.
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The house was a study in deferred maintenance. Charming, with furniture, bedding, kitchen ware, and barn implements still in place, but old. He was a budding architect. I was a friend of a friend with no repair skills to speak of, but had youthful enthusiasm, and came cheap.
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Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a high school far, far away, there was a computer date dance.
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Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
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And yet, somehow, I have experienced cotton candy, apple fritters, kettle corn, corn dogs, Indian tacos and bannock, and have roamed through outdoor venues with crowds of young people milling around midways, carnies, pavilions with exotic chickens, beer fests, dog shows, food trucks, music stages, lumberjack contests, and barrel races. Not to mention street fairs and parades of all stripes. I just can’t tell you where and when.
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So many to choose from, and what a long, strange trip it's been...
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I suppose most memorable family vacations have something that goes wrong.
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Many kids had cap guns in holsters on their hips. These were loaded with red strips which were impregnated with dots of chemicals, and would explode with a loud bang when the trigger was pulled.
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As we pulled onto the onramp of 580, I screamed that we had to go back, NOW!
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I was made Queen for a Day. But that started a Family Feud and landed me in Jeopardy.
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It was lonely. I suppose it was just adolescent agonizing over the search for independence and existential meaning, while simultaneously longing for acceptance and inclusion from kids my age. You know, the usual.
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A litter of kittens frolicking in the California sun, named by my teenaged aunt Susan: Peanuts, Schroeder, Linus and Charley Brown. Left behind when his family moved, we inherited the tawny pai dog. Feral and battle-scarred, a forever stray who one day vanished. Bishkar. Gray and white cat, clawing, meowing, rubbing, always knowing how to…
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With apologies to Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist.
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Then, in the fall of 1963, an amazing thing happened. The State Department, through the United States Information Service (USIS), sponsored a goodwill tour of American jazz musicians. None other than the Duke Ellington Band—yes, that one!--made an astoundingly extensive tour that, according to google, went from New York to Damascus, Amman, Jerusalem, Beirut, Kabul, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Colombo, Kandy, Dacca, Lahore, Karachi, Teheran, Isfahan, Abadan, Baghdad, Beirut and Ankara. You may have noticed Dacca in that list.
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I think it was my fourteenth birthday when my father bought me a transistor radio. They were a wonder. Mine was small enough to hold in a hand, with a little leatherette case and ear bud, from Japan.
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In the end, she decided she didn’t want to break up the family, and returned, telling my father never to mention the idea of doing a PhD to her, EVER! It was too late. That was that.
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In 1957, travel overseas meant lots of shots for our whole family—Mom. Dad, and three children. I was the middle child, age 6. We had to go to a special clinic in downtown Lansing, and we children were promised we would be taken out to dinner if we “behaved”. This would be a big deal…
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We had no details. Television? None in the house. Radio? I can’t recall. And really, why should it be covered 24/7 in Botswana? When you read about a disaster on the other side of the world, how many details do you hear? Internet? Smartphone? This was 1989.
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In the darkness, find light
Sun shines, laughter peals
Watch again and again
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The Goops, they lick their fingers,
And the Goops, they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth,
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
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Somehow, we turned into a street and found ourselves in Old Dacca, where we clearly didn’t belong.
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Sally called me Cyd Charisse, but the hairdo was the only resemblance.
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In Canada, new programs were suddenly in place for the unemployed and businesses. Schools closed, gatherings were progressively smaller. Everything was changed, reminding me that “normal” can dissipate overnight. I harbored a guilty thought—could world-on-pause be something good?
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Kids! Try this at home!
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I didn’t learn who McCarthy was until much later. And I know now why news is so important.
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Now that decision seems pre-ordained and perfect, as life never is--but it is for me.
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I don’t think the memory of that ever left her, written wordlessly in a scar on her heart.
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I just did an inventory: 81.
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The executive team fought unionization ferociously-- we were fomenting discord and destroying the clinic, and how could we do this to the community?
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I always thought I had a knack for drawing. Someone encouraged this when I was twelve, a year when my family was stationed in East Pakistan, and I came under the wing of an ex-pat Danish artist name Tova. She helped me do an oil painting for my parents, a still life with two…
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Trust yourself.
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There is only ONE THING you are permitted to say
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The most complete darkness I ever knew was in Vietnam
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applying for med school while female
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The Khyber Pass
Prompted By Writer's Choice
/ Stories
Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, Mongols, Sikhs, Afghans, and British all crossed or vied for the Pass. Still to come would be its incarnation as part of the “hippie trail” to India, and its role as a supply route for the war in Afghanistan.
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New Years at Times Square
Prompted By Writer's Choice
/ Stories
Meeting my buddies in Times Square on New Years Eve--what could go wrong?
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Snow Problem
Prompted By All’s Well That Ends Well
/ Stories
Snow had fallen overnight, and when we arrived at Skyline, the road was closed. The trip was ruined.
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A New Season
Prompted By The Four Seasons
/ Stories
September was my birthday, it was the start of a new school year, the sticky summer was through, the air was crisp and I might even have some new clothes. Of course it was my favorite.
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White Coat
Prompted By Resistance
/ Stories
We were told that we would be changed by our medical training. Our tender idealism would be transformed by long hours and hard work.
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Rite of Passage
Prompted By The P O
/ Stories
For me, it was the first decent job I had even though it was only over the Christmas rush.
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Lessons from Kindergarten
Prompted By Sleep
/ Stories
There were milk and cookies afterwards.
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On the Whiskey Trail
Prompted By Farms
/ Stories
Was it a town, a hamlet, an existing site? All we knew was that it had appeared on some old marriage and birth records as far back I could trace my Scottish relatives, and we wanted to see it.
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Lest We Forget
Prompted By Beaches
/ Stories
2024 is the 80th anniversary of D-day, the joint Allied invasion on the beaches of Normandy to liberate France from the Nazis.
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Rolling on a River
Prompted By Surprises
/ Stories
I had a vague familiarity with the digeridoo and some of the paintings. What to expect?
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What a Doll!
Prompted By Collecting
/ Stories
I found myself being seduced by hand-crafted dolls from different lands over the years, finding serendipitous treasures in flea markets, souvenir shops, street vendors, and craft markets.
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A Day on the Bay
Prompted By Boats
/ Stories
It promised to be a busy weekend. Sally had invited her dad to Oakland for Fleet Week and the dance card was full with things a veteran from the greatest-generation might like: a visit to Alameda Naval Station, the Blue Angels flyovers, a Bay cruise.
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The Last Drop
Prompted By Coffee or Tea?
/ Stories
My mother was out on some errand, and Susan asked if she could have a cup of coffee. That seemed important to her (we didn't understand the caffeine imperative yet), so my older sister and I, who had never actually made coffee, tried to rise to the occasion.
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Travel Bag
Prompted By Travels
/ Stories
It is remarkable how you really could carry everything you needed.
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Love Letters
Prompted By Words
/ Stories
My father was posted far away to Canton, but they promised to write. And write he did—at the rate of four or more times a week. And she wrote back faithfully.
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Garage Sale
Prompted By Shoppers
/ Stories
It was stressful to have the sale as it reminded me of the pain of packing everything up and moving. But it is a pleasure to see people walk off with their new treasures.
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Olympic Hopeful Adjacent
Prompted By Olympic Hopefuls
/ Stories
At best sports were a minor part of what really mattered in life.
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Forgetting, or Just not Remembering?
Prompted By Forgetting
/ Stories
Earlier, life seemed to be an endless acquisition of information and experience. More and more stuffed into my brain. At some point, that balance seems to have tipped into forgetting more than remembering.
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The Chinese Supermarket
Prompted By Supermarkets
/ Stories
My mother always had a fondness for the scroll of hand-painted figures, dressed in traditional Chinese clothes, carrying produce or hawking other wares. They were framed in pieces and hung on the wall along with other mementoes from her time in Peking (now Beijing) in the late 1940’s. She lived in a neighborhood of classic…
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Class of 1968
Prompted By 1968
/ Stories
I was in the high school class of 1968, indelibly stamped. When that year was still the future, it represented that border between childhood dependency and my real life, whatever that might mean. I had known nothing but childhood, but I felt ready for things to turn.
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Glen Echo
Prompted By Amusement Park Memories
/ Stories
In the summer, the dense greenery along the Potomac River covers houses, streets, and history. We moved to the area in 1966 and slowly discovered some unexpected treasures--the towpath along the abandoned C & O canal, Sycamore Island, the old settlement of Cabin John, the Clara Barton house. The Glen Echo Amusement Park.
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The Bay Bridge
Prompted By Rush Hour is a Misnomer!
/ Stories
Crossing the bottleneck of a bridge required maneuvering through a tangle of feeder lanes, timing the rush hour, and most of all having good traffic karma.
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Beyond Sex
Prompted By Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
/ Stories
I remember when sex seemed like the border between childhood and becoming an adult, shrouded in mystery and myth, perhaps wonderful and exciting but also dangerous and distasteful. Information was scant in my middle-America 1950’s childhood, but my mother managed to pre-empt more unreliable sources by explaining the basic “facts of life” in mildly appalling…
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Bad Tattoo
Prompted By Tattoos and Piercings
/ Stories
A local brewery named itself “Bad Tattoo”, a good description of far too many skin decorations.
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Waiting for the Next One
Prompted By Waiting Rooms
/ Stories
There was surely some apprehension people felt while waiting for medical care, but people often chatted with the front desk or each other and in a small town, it wasn’t unusual to run into someone you knew.
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Bad Moon Rising
Prompted By Superstitions
/ Stories
Beliefs about women’s health and the moon are particularly strong.
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How it Was and Is
Prompted By Shopping: Then and Now
/ Stories
Maybe my mother did not have the shopping gene or never shook off the Depression and Protestant ethos, but she seems to have passed that shopping ambivalence on to me.
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You know this quote.
The Meaning of Life
Prompted By Books That Inspired Me
/ Stories
How did I happen to read that book? I don’t remember anyone giving it to me or seeing it in the house, so most likely it was in a school library, maybe thoughtfully displayed by a librarian, or maybe just calling to me from a shelf. In any case it was not like anything I had read and it spoke powerfully to my own adolescent yearning to make sense of existence.
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Borderline
Prompted By Fears and Phobias
/ Stories
I still have a pang in my gut crossing any border, even when it should be benign. Anything could happen in that liminal area.
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Counting Pills
Prompted By Pills
/ Stories
Instead of the usual “my name is” and “how are you” basics, I learned how to explain how many pills to take how often, with or without food, with cautions about dizziness, upset stomach or other side effects.
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The Whole World is Watching
Prompted By TV That Inspired Me
/ Stories
We managed to see our share of the Saturday kids’ programs, endless varieties of Westerns, the stereotypical Ozzie and Harriet sitcoms, variety shows and increasingly, the news.
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Spice of Life
Prompted By Acquired Tastes
/ Stories
My father was always a bit of a food adventurist. He liked vinegar on broccoli, Brussels sprouts and spinach, and potato salad with vinegar and onions instead of mayonnaise.
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Lifecycle
Prompted By City vs Suburbs
/ Stories
Family and friends, returning to the center.
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Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Prompted By Mending Fences
/ Stories
Could it really be that simple?
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Little House in the ‘Hood
Prompted By My Real Estate Story
/ Stories
At last I was successfully disentangling from a bad relationship with an incipiently psychotic partner and needed to move out, now. A colleague at work turned out to be the landlady of an available place, not far from our community health clinic, and I grabbed it.
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Salud y Paz
Prompted By War
/ Stories
We asked what they needed most and they requested a transportation vehicle. Not an ambulance—that would be too much of a target.
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An Embarrassment of Stuff
Prompted By Stuff
/ Stories
Another friend had a bumper sticker—“Live simply that others may simply live”—that still seems like good advice.
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Breathe
Prompted By Meditation
/ Stories
It was easy to lose focus and dither the time away, getting lost in e-mail or reports, working through the day without a break. I decided to prioritize finding time to physically leave the office at least once a day.
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Beyond the Breakers
Prompted By Swimming
/ Stories
And like magic, the water didn’t crash over us and tumble us around, it just lifted us up and then down, our toes touching the sand again. It was wonderful.
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What’s a Snow Day?
Prompted By Snow Day
/ Stories
I developed an awe of the men (I never saw a woman) who worked for CalTrans at all hours and conditions, keeping the roads open.
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Learning How to Love Jack
Prompted By Training Pets
/ Stories
We felt a bit deceived—after all, we only agreed to take him because she had begged—but he had clearly had a traumatic adolescence and changed since his owner had died. We still took him in, the damaged goods, and named him “Jack”.
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Stop if You’ve Heard This One Before
Prompted By Comedy
/ Stories
A hippie, a priest and Henry Kissinger were in an airplane......
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License to Drive
Prompted By The DMV
/ Stories
Turning sixteen was a coming-of-age ritual. Not a sweet sixteen party—getting a driver’s license! Having wheels in mid-twentieth century US meant mobility, freedom, unsupervised hanging out with friends, romance.
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Memories of Cars Past
Prompted By My Car of Yesteryear
/ Stories
I needed something more reliable. My hours were irregular, public transportation spotty, and I lived too far from the hospital to walk. And it rained and snowed. Any car that ran would do. That, plus my general ambivalence, is probably why my first car was such a clunker.
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Inquiring Minds
Prompted By Turning Points
/ Stories
I had already reasoned out that, looking at the evidence, there was no way that Santa could make it to all the boys and girls around the world in one night, not to mention the chimney issue or the problematic Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy visits.
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Haste and Telegraph, 1970
Prompted By Favors
/ Stories
Telegraph Avenue. Wonderful! Full of cheap eats, head shops, bookstores, hippies and students and life.
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Bad Temper
Prompted By Short Fuse
/ Stories
Frustration has been my strongest trigger, especially from interaction with systems I dislike.
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Up a Cliff
Prompted By Dangerous Deeds
/ Stories
Halfway up, I got stuck. I couldn’t see how to get up or down, splayed across the cliff, hanging onto tiny stone ledge finger and toe holds.
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Lost in the Weeds
Prompted By Daydreaming
/ Stories
Little songs would run on endless loops as I concentrated. It was a sort of fuzzy daydream state, where only vague thoughts of work or the future hovered at the periphery, kept at bay by my mantra of the day. “Doing the garden, pulling the weeks, who could ask for more?”
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Eliza, Maybe
Prompted By Imagined Lives
/ Stories
Two years ago, my grandniece Eliza Judy was born. I haven’t met her yet, but the postings show a smiling and adorable little girl, hugging her stuffed animals, running with toddler steps, dressed in a cute Halloween costume, laughing when parents or grandparents interact with her. She is healthy, well-off and well-loved, bright and radiating hope for the future.
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A long way
Prompted By Prejudice
/ Stories
Nancy, our new office manager, was pushing hard on everyone in the clinic to sign up for a rafting trip. She had gone with the same outfit before and assured us it would be wonderful. We would all simply blast off in carpools after work on Friday for the 7- hour trip to the Klamath…
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Supernova
Prompted By Ex-Friends
/ Stories
“You will always be friends” the counselor told us. We were too entwined and besides, she had seen it repeatedly in the women’s community, a fluidity of friends and lovers staying connected despite everything. I said nothing but promised myself, “Oh no, we won’t”.
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The Poppies Grow
Prompted By Veterans Day
/ Stories
Veterans were synonymous with WWII when I was a child, the good war against the unimaginably evil Hitler but also the horror of the atom bomb. I don’t think I was the only one who wished for “world peace” when I blew out birthday candles or participated in student United Nations.
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Marble School Library
Prompted By Libraries
/ Stories
The library was on the basement floor of that old 1934 two-story dark brick building in a small windowless room, maybe 12 by 15 feet. Its walls were lined with bookshelves, neatly organized into the Dewey decimal system
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1969
Prompted By Strikes
/ Stories
Imagine being in that stadium with thousands of other university students and faculty, all roused up, politically aware, wanting a path forward. The emotional energy was contagious and overwhelming. Surely the concerns of so many people coming together could not be denied.
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Fireman Phil
Prompted By Fire
/ Stories
Fireman Phil came to Marble Elementary School. We first-graders were gathered in the school gym, seated cross-legged on the floor. What makes a fire? How do you stop it? Do you throw water on oil (no!)? This is a fire extinguisher. If you are on fire, don’t run–drop and roll. It’s been over 60 years…
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The Fire Next Time
Prompted By Fire
/ Stories
The fire was blowing along the ridgeline in our direction. Trees were candling—igniting and throwing off firebrands--burning hunks of wood. Now the fire had jumped the vast concrete firebreak of Hwy 24 into the Oakland Hills.
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Monsoon
Prompted By Rainy Days
/ Stories
Monsoons are more than just rainy days. They are the wet season, the dry season’s counterpoint. The rains are intense downpours, not drizzly affairs, and they sweep in ferociously. They are the annual water renewal that makes life possible. Of course, that is changing along with the rest of the climate, but still. The small…
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Exploring the unexpected.
As Real as It Gets
Prompted By The ER
/ Stories
People at San Francisco General Hospital emergency room had T shirts printed up that included the tag line: “as real as it gets”. That pretty much summed up the big urban County Hospital experience where I was a medical student. The ER was where lives in crisis ended up—there, or in prison, or sometimes both.…
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Voir Dire
Prompted By Jury Duty
/ Stories
Was there anyone on the panel who could not give equal weight to the testimony of a police officer?
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Don’t You Ever Feel Lonely?
Prompted By Isolation and Solitude
/ Stories
The UFW had some simple housing available in a local apartment building in Calexico, where I had stayed the first time. It was pretty bleak, and soon one of my union contacts offered that I could stay at his place on the other side of the border, in Mexicali.
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A brief moment
Prompted By Dawn
/ Stories
Nighttime in our community hospital was something to be dreaded when I was a resident. It meant I was on overnight call, following a regular day’s work. The hospital emptied of the day staff and visitors, leaving limited lab and imaging services, fewer nurses, a couple of physicians and emergency room staff–tag, you’re “it”. When…
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How clear it seems in retrospect.
Now We Are Six (-ty plus)
Prompted By Aging
/ Stories
My mother sometimes asked when she started looking old. I notice I look a lot more like her every day.
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Africa
Prompted By Danger
/ Stories
In 1989, there were several reports of tourists being killed while visiting game parks in Kenya. When people found out that we were about to travel to Africa, they asked with alarm, “Should you really go?”
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Where are you from?
Prompted By Can You Go Home Again?
/ Stories
When people ask me where I’m from, it gets complicated. I say, “Well, we moved around a lot. I grew up mostly in Michigan.” However, Michigan was just where my nuclear family lived on and off when not overseas, there were no relatives nearby, and we moved away before I finished high school. In fact,…
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The Great Wall
Prompted By Lightning
/ Stories
You can see a great distance from the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. The view is quite spectacular as it winds along the crests of the mountains, rolling up and down with the terrain; the wide path at the top of the wall turns into irregular stairsteps to accommodate the undulations and is punctuated…
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The Blob
Prompted By Trauma
/ Stories
In the universe of trauma, it seems pretty trivial to describe a childhood horror movie. Looking back now, it is hard to believe that I would be terrified by the old sci-fi low-budget 1950’s film, “The Blob”. I was surprised to learn from Wikipedia that it was Steve McQueen’s acting debut, and music was by…
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Gong Ceremony
Prompted By Ceremony
/ Stories
It was our friend Jack who recommended Aidan to us. We needed someone to paint the house interior, and he assured us that Aidan was the best. He was also an artist, a perfectionist, and a quixotic Irish fellow who presented us with a four-page estimate in hand-written calligraphy. Yes, he was available, and yes,…
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Say It Ain’t So
Prompted By Retrospect Retrospective
/ Stories
It was the dark winter solstice of December 2020. Everything was shut down because of COVID, and vaccines were a mere glimmer. Life was suspended. Work had stopped abruptly one day in March—I was too old to risk showing up in person, and virtual options were poor—so de facto retirement came more suddenly than I…
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You’ve Got Mail!
Prompted By My First Computer
/ Stories
There was a phone with buttons for hold and intercom, and a blocky computer console sitting squarely in the middle of the desk. I think it was a Dell. The font was clunky and there were no graphics. This was my first computer.
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Cartophile
Prompted By Directionally Challenged
/ Stories
We were put on a bus, blindfolded, and driven around country roads this way and that. At some point, groups of four were let out of the bus, given a map, and told to find our way back. We were all fifth graders in East Lansing public school and this was part of the curriculum…
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Dentistry for All
Prompted By The Dentist
/ Stories
Although I don’t look forward to going to the dentist, I do appreciate the importance of the work–maybe because I have always had dental issues, from cavities to crowns, partial plates and bridges to implants, orthodontia to tooth extraction. Much of it is thanks to genetics, which forgot to provide me a full secondary set…
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Sandy McTire
Prompted By Retail Rewards
/ Stories
We were looking for somewhere to buy a boom box to play CD music for our elopement ceremony in Niagara Falls, and someone suggested Canadian Tire. Incredulous, we had to ask why an automotive service center would have such a thing and were met with an amused look and explanation that the store carried much…
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Spice of Life
Prompted By Learning To Cook
/ Stories
Big error: I hadn’t actually checked the recipe before the day of the meal.
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Off We Go
Prompted By Planes and Trains
/ Stories
But in 1961 our family was headed for East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) for a two-year stint and I was now eleven-going-on-twelve. For me, it was an escape into the unknown, a reprieve from the prospect of junior high, and I was certain that all my frames of reference would shift.
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The Way We Were
Prompted By Feathering Our Nests
/ Stories
The house looked sort of lived-in, and we loved it, eclectic and thrown-together though it was.
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Not a Customer
Prompted By Customer Service
/ Stories
Are people merely “consumers” seeking to get the best deal from health “providers” based on market factors (and their satisfaction is important so they will keep being customers?) Or are they just people needing to heal?
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It’s All One
Prompted By Drugs and Alcohol
/ Stories
It was a fall afternoon when Ron and his friend appeared with the acid and what the hell, we had nothing better to do.
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I’m late, I’m late Retroflash
Prompted By Procrastination
/ Stories
Don't you hate the state of late?
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Chestertown Follies
Prompted By Memorable Performances
/ Stories
There were songs for the sisters, the grandchildren, the in-laws, and the whole “cast”. We thought they were pretty clever.
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The Magic Potion
Prompted By Do You Believe in Magic?
/ Stories
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." – Albert Einstein
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You Never Forget
Prompted By Riding a Bicycle
/ Stories
They say you never forget how to ride—it is, after all, “just like riding a bicycle”.
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The Little MG That Couldn’t
Prompted By Car Trouble
/ Stories
Sally gallantly offered that I could take the MG, but I wouldn’t consider it—far too untrustworthy to risk taking over the bridge.
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Keeping Warm
Prompted By What I Own That's Older Than I Am
/ Stories
The downside of a house of mementoes is that it is hard to throw anything out. I think the oldest thing I have is something that eluded getting thrown out by several generations, but I don’t really know its story. This is all I know.
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In the Before Time Retroflash.
Prompted By Broadcast News
/ Stories
In the Before time, every evening the news god spoke.
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“You don’t look Chinese!”
This One’s For You
Prompted By Why We Write
/ Stories
I write because Suzy Underwood put out a plea to my college class listserv for stories about interviews, and I thought I had a good one.
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We’re Doing the Best That We Can
Prompted By Lost in Translation
/ Stories
On my first day, it was show time. I nervously knocked on the door and entered to find a pleasant young man who listened patiently as I introduced myself in halting Spanish and asked what had brought him to the clinic.
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Unforgettable
Prompted By What My Father Told Me
/ Stories
As my mother descended into dementia, her letters stopped, and we kept in touch through phone calls, increasingly with my father alone. By the time my mother died, he had become my confidante and mutual support system.
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An Intern’s Prayer retroflash
Prompted By Sleepy Time
/ Stories
I have spent years of my life trying to come to terms with on-call sleep deprivation.
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Don’t Obey in Advance
Prompted By Banned Books
/ Stories
I felt uncomfortable packing the book and uncomfortable leaving it behind.
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Was Blind but Now I See
Prompted By The Eyes Have It
/ Stories
My father was leaving the lecture hall when he stepped out of the doorway and a snowball—or more accurately, an ice ball—came hurling from the side and hit him directly across his open eye.
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What She Said
Prompted By What My Mother Told Me
/ Stories
So proud you are all contributing members of society.
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A Very Bad Idea for an Auction
Prompted By Auctions and Raffles
/ Stories
The plan was to recruit male volunteers to be “sold”, for a term of some hours, at a “slave auction”. It was 1967, in the middle of civil rights protests.
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The Hair of the Prophet
Prompted By Refugees
/ Stories
The Muslim staff that worked in our house protected the gardener and his Hindu family, temporary refugees in their own land.
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Year Number Three Retroflash
Prompted By Pandemic, Year Three
/ Stories
My whole world lies waiting
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Photo Booth on Safari
Prompted By Photo Booths
/ Stories
We could hear dull, throaty roars in the distance. We were more than happy, thank you very much Mr. Guard, to be accompanied across the field. Would they be willing to have us take their picture the next day, once there was light, if we gave them a copy? Indeed, they would.
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Port in a Storm
Prompted By Hotels, Motels, Inns, and Hostels
/ Stories
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a light of hope.
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What happened?
Prompted By Cheating
/ Stories
“What happened?” The woman in charge of Introduction to Clinical Medicine seemed concerned. I had failed the course’s written exam. “I don’t know.” And really, I didn’t. I had never failed an exam. We second-year medical students had been farmed out in small groups to assorted ophthalmologists and ENT physicians in practice to learn eye…
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The Basement Laundry
Prompted By Basements and Attics
/ Stories
Unlike the barracks and prefabs we had lived in, the modest new house in East Lansing had a righteous Midwestern full, unfinished basement. Wooden staircase near the back door, cinder block walls, divided in two sides. Washing machine and dryer, furnace, storage, and tools on one side; if we had canned, the fruits and vegetables…
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Time is short
Prompted By Time
/ Stories
We are adaptable, smart in many ways, and know that what should be done is also technically possible. Is it enough?
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Stove
Prompted By Some Assembly Required
/ Stories
You never like that stove. You don’t know what it meant.
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Val-de-ree, Val-de-ra
Prompted By Scouting
/ Stories
I’m sure you would not guess it, if you guessed a long, long while, so I’ll take it out and put it on—it’s a great big Brownie smile!
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Shower
Prompted By Guilty Pleasures
/ Stories
The routine was: Turn on water and collect in bucket until warm—wet self—turn off water—lather and wash—turn on water to rinse—end!
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Have You Met Miss Jones?
Prompted By One Song That Moves Me
/ Stories
I always liked the way my dad played the piano, inventing arrangements from a fake book and not just playing scripted sheet music. He loved interesting chords, with a just enough dissonance. There were certain tunes he played often, refining the sound over time, drawing heavily from the Great American Song Book and jazz standards. …
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A recipe for joy--try this at home!
Delivering the news
Prompted By Newspapers
/ Stories
I would go to bed half dressed in a tee shirt, and at the first sound of the alarm, quietly roll my legs over the edge of my top bunk and slide onto the floor, already standing, trying not to disturb the roommate.
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The Accidental Genealogist
Prompted By Group Photos
/ Stories
“Hi mom, it’s me, calling from Sweden.” This will have to be short. It is expensive. “When was Grandma born?” “What was her father’s name?” I need some crumb of information if we are to have any luck tracking down relatives, and this was all unplanned. 1897. Carl Corsberg, from ”Smaland”. That will have to…
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C’est Cheese Retroflash
Prompted By Group Photos
/ Stories
Won't you please move closer? Now, say, "Cheese"!
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The First Snowflakes
Prompted By Snowy Days
/ Stories
“It’s snowing!” And all the kids in Mrs. Kennerson’s first grade class jumped up from our desk chairs as one, rushing excitedly to the window. Outside, flurries spun and danced in the wind, and for that moment, it was the most important thing in the world.
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Shoveling the Drive on a Snowy Morning
Prompted By Snowy Days
/ Stories
Memories of when I lived on Sumac Ridge (with apologies to Robert Frost).
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Kindness of Strangers
Prompted By Highways and Byways
/ Stories
We had a whole ten days off, a fiftieth birthday to celebrate, a new telescope to try out, and a good grasp of Spanish. A map. No GPS, smart phone, or travel internet then.
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A Comin’ Through the Corn
Prompted By Highways and Byways
/ Stories
A woman was “looking at the corn” when she blew a stop sign and T-boned our car.
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Be it resolved retroflash
Prompted By Resolutions
/ Stories
I'm not really someone who makes new year's resolutions, but this year Sally announced she plans to learn to play the old accordion she bought on a whim years ago.
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Holiday meme retroflash
Prompted By Holiday Letters
/ Stories
Actually, sometimes I really like getting a letter.
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Lucky dog retro flash
Prompted By An Attitude of Gratitude
/ Stories
When I started thinking about this prompt, I started a list of all the reasons I had to be grateful, and soon found there was a true embarrassment of riches. When stacked up next to myriad reasons to be dismayed, angry, and depressed, an old saying came to mind: “I guess a man (sic) is…
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In it for Life
Prompted By Family Medicine
/ Stories
All efforts to improve health are based on helping the body to heal itself, be it through emotional support, listening, suggestions for nutrition or activity, medications or surgeries, self-care or connection to a healthy environment.
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Chain, chain, chain retroflash
Prompted By Chain Letters
/ Stories
With apologies to Ms Franklin
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Non, je ne regrette rien!
Prompted By Regrets
/ Stories
I had a glimpse of the future at East Lansing Junior High--and it didn't look good. It seemed like a reprieve when our family moved to the other side of the world. I wasn't sorry.
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“Trickertreat”
Prompted By Trick or Treat?
/ Stories
Once it got dark, the kids would hit the residential streets in roving bands gone wild, armed with big bags, running to each porchlight to cry, “Trickertreat!" at the door.
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A Good Death
Prompted By Lemons to Lemonade
/ Stories
At age 92, there was no treatment for him; usually the end would come from some infection his blood cells could no longer fight off. When? Maybe a month or two, max. Maybe tomorrow. No one knew. He got very quiet and then said, “Oh. I guess I had better make some phone calls.”
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Avoiding the Boot
Prompted By Parking
/ Stories
The traffic going into London for the morning commute is insane. The roads in London are impossible (and no GPS then). Finding the cute little hotel in the Bloomsbury District would have been a challenge if we were awake and oriented; we were not.
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Happy reading to all
Prompted By Children's Books
/ Stories
I just remember it was the girls crowding around my dad, and it was a very special time. Each week, he put aside his work and read us a chapter.
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Lunch box
Prompted By Mealtime
/ Stories
Meals were a challenge when I was a resident on hospital rotations. There were no official breaks, no lunch, dinner, or breakfast hours, just work that had to be done and rounds to attend. Sure, there were cafeterias with overcooked steam trays of food, but they weren’t open 24/7, and weren’t free. Finding a moment…
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We have met the Enemy–Retroflash
Prompted By 9/11 Twenty Years Later
/ Stories
It is not foreign terrorists who invaded the US Capitol, corrupted democracy, attacked the press, blocked voting, tried to install an unelected autocrat, attacked public health, imposed punishments with religious zealotry against women, or damaged the rule of law.
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Trying to work
Prompted By Going to Work
/ Stories
It was clear I needed a job. Turning twenty, literate (two years of college behind me), energetic, and flexible—surely this would not be too hard. But it turned out I knew nothing about finding work.
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This Old House
Prompted By Home Repair
/ Stories
The house was a study in deferred maintenance. Charming, with furniture, bedding, kitchen ware, and barn implements still in place, but old. He was a budding architect. I was a friend of a friend with no repair skills to speak of, but had youthful enthusiasm, and came cheap.
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Oh joy! Oh f#ck! Oh crap! Sorry.
The Computer Date Dance
Prompted By Dating
/ Stories
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a high school far, far away, there was a computer date dance.
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The Summer of our Discontent
Prompted By That Summer
/ Stories
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
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All is Fair
Prompted By State or County Fair
/ Stories
And yet, somehow, I have experienced cotton candy, apple fritters, kettle corn, corn dogs, Indian tacos and bannock, and have roamed through outdoor venues with crowds of young people milling around midways, carnies, pavilions with exotic chickens, beer fests, dog shows, food trucks, music stages, lumberjack contests, and barrel races. Not to mention street fairs and parades of all stripes. I just can’t tell you where and when.
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Okay. We were definitely eclipse-chasers now.
Happy Anniversaries Retroflash
Prompted By Anniversaries
/ Stories
So many to choose from, and what a long, strange trip it's been...
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Diminished expectations
Prompted By Family Trips
/ Stories
I suppose most memorable family vacations have something that goes wrong.
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What did we know?
Prompted By Guns Then and Now
/ Stories
Many kids had cap guns in holsters on their hips. These were loaded with red strips which were impregnated with dots of chemicals, and would explode with a loud bang when the trigger was pulled.
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Smile!
Prompted By Can't Leave Home Without It
/ Stories
As we pulled onto the onramp of 580, I screamed that we had to go back, NOW!
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Quiz show retroflash
Prompted By Quiz and Game Shows
/ Stories
I was made Queen for a Day. But that started a Family Feud and landed me in Jeopardy.
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The anti-club
Prompted By Cliques and Clubs
/ Stories
It was lonely. I suppose it was just adolescent agonizing over the search for independence and existential meaning, while simultaneously longing for acceptance and inclusion from kids my age. You know, the usual.
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If the name fits, wear it
Prompted By Naming Pets
/ Stories
A litter of kittens frolicking in the California sun, named by my teenaged aunt Susan: Peanuts, Schroeder, Linus and Charley Brown. Left behind when his family moved, we inherited the tawny pai dog. Feral and battle-scarred, a forever stray who one day vanished. Bishkar. Gray and white cat, clawing, meowing, rubbing, always knowing how to…
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Blowin’ in the Wind
Prompted By Recycling
/ Stories
With apologies to Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist.
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And the best of all, Sir Duke
Prompted By Separating the Art from the Artist
/ Stories
Then, in the fall of 1963, an amazing thing happened. The State Department, through the United States Information Service (USIS), sponsored a goodwill tour of American jazz musicians. None other than the Duke Ellington Band—yes, that one!--made an astoundingly extensive tour that, according to google, went from New York to Damascus, Amman, Jerusalem, Beirut, Kabul, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Colombo, Kandy, Dacca, Lahore, Karachi, Teheran, Isfahan, Abadan, Baghdad, Beirut and Ankara. You may have noticed Dacca in that list.
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Que sera, sera
Prompted By Remembering Radios
/ Stories
I think it was my fourteenth birthday when my father bought me a transistor radio. They were a wonder. Mine was small enough to hold in a hand, with a little leatherette case and ear bud, from Japan.
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A bumpy section of the journey
Prompted By Stay-at-Home Parent
/ Stories
In the end, she decided she didn’t want to break up the family, and returned, telling my father never to mention the idea of doing a PhD to her, EVER! It was too late. That was that.
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This won’t hurt a bit
Prompted By Vaccination
/ Stories
In 1957, travel overseas meant lots of shots for our whole family—Mom. Dad, and three children. I was the middle child, age 6. We had to go to a special clinic in downtown Lansing, and we children were promised we would be taken out to dinner if we “behaved”. This would be a big deal…
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I Just Called..
Prompted By Technology Tribulations
/ Stories
We had no details. Television? None in the house. Radio? I can’t recall. And really, why should it be covered 24/7 in Botswana? When you read about a disaster on the other side of the world, how many details do you hear? Internet? Smartphone? This was 1989.
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Movie Review Haiku
Prompted By Rewatchable Movies
/ Stories
In the darkness, find light
Sun shines, laughter peals
Watch again and again
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Table Manners: A Case Study
Prompted By Manners
/ Stories
The Goops, they lick their fingers,
And the Goops, they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth,
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
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Lessons from Old Dacca
Prompted By Inequality
/ Stories
Somehow, we turned into a street and found ourselves in Old Dacca, where we clearly didn’t belong.
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With apologies to Julie Andrews.
Haircut in Istanbul
Prompted By Haircuts
/ Stories
Sally called me Cyd Charisse, but the hairdo was the only resemblance.
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Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe
Prompted By One Year of the Pandemic
/ Stories
In Canada, new programs were suddenly in place for the unemployed and businesses. Schools closed, gatherings were progressively smaller. Everything was changed, reminding me that “normal” can dissipate overnight. I harbored a guilty thought—could world-on-pause be something good?
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Snap, Crackle, Pop
Prompted By Advertising Jingles and Slogans
/ Stories
Kids! Try this at home!
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Good Night and Good Luck Retroflash
Prompted By First Memory
/ Stories
I didn’t learn who McCarthy was until much later. And I know now why news is so important.
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Righteous persistence brings great rewards
Prompted By Reconnecting
/ Stories
Now that decision seems pre-ordained and perfect, as life never is--but it is for me.
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We’d make a peach of a pair
Prompted By Valentine's Day
/ Stories
I don’t think the memory of that ever left her, written wordlessly in a scar on her heart.
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The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Prompted By Hats
/ Stories
I just did an inventory: 81.
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Viva nuestra asociación
Prompted By Good Trouble
/ Stories
The executive team fought unionization ferociously-- we were fomenting discord and destroying the clinic, and how could we do this to the community?
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Art at Harvard?
Prompted By Art and Art Museums
/ Stories
I always thought I had a knack for drawing. Someone encouraged this when I was twelve, a year when my family was stationed in East Pakistan, and I came under the wing of an ex-pat Danish artist name Tova. She helped me do an oil painting for my parents, a still life with two…
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You’re on the right track baby
Prompted By Letter to My Younger Self
/ Stories
Trust yourself.
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Thank you lessons
Prompted By Thank You
/ Stories
There is only ONE THING you are permitted to say
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Lights out in Vietnam
Prompted By Hello Darkness
/ Stories
The most complete darkness I ever knew was in Vietnam
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The Medical School Interview
Prompted By Interviews
/ Stories
applying for med school while female
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