I probably have other more valuable things that are older than I am, but these are the two I treasure the most. Read More

My first memory of broadcast news is the image of my mother madly ironing while watching something on television that clearly angered her, the Army-McCarthy hearings. I was just a kid and thus she never explained to me why she kept watching this when it was clearly upsetting her. I guess my grandkids could wonder… Read More

The names selected by our parents were ones they favored from popular movie stars — Lauren for me after Lauren Bacall and Fredric for him for Fredric March. Read More

But if I must confess the truth, I write for myself because that is who I am. Read More

We knew from past experience that we would struggle in Paris unless our kids helped, which they refused to do. Read More

As I mark my tenth Father’s Day without having a father, I am thinking about this most important choice my father helped me to make. Read More

If I live to be 90 like my parents, my children are free to surprise me. Just no flamingos this time. Read More

While I am far from woke, I really want to learn. Read More

As a child, I remember being told, “go to bed.” This meant brush your teeth and use the bathroom. Whether or not my parents read to me is a lost memory. If I had trouble falling asleep, the remedy was a glass of warm milk. The first actual bedtime rituals I remember were for my… Read More

On May 10, 1933, university students burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books in Berlin’s Opera Square (pictured below). 40,000 people gathered to hear Nazi chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, make a speech in which he said, “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Sound familiar? This past January, the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee… Read More