A blind date to a boring movie is not a recipe for success Read More

I grew up in Belleville, New Jersey (1960 population 35,005), in a house on Washington Avenue, the main street of town. Directly across the street was a movie theater, a Shell gas station, and a drugstore. The featured image is the drugstore, and you can see a little bit of the Shell sign on the lefthand… Read More

Before I start my own story, I have to explain how this prompt, College Majors as Career Gaugers, came about. I subscribe to a listserv of members of the class preceding mine at my alma mater, which actively discusses myriad topics on a daily basis. A few months ago, somebody posed the question: did your… Read More

When I think of social media, the first thing I think of is Facebook. For me, Facebook was always about sharing pictures and bits of news with family and friends who are scattered around the world. Now, in addition, it involves sharing links to articles about the current terrifying political situation. I have never considered… Read More

Physical Education, or Gym as we called it, was by far my least favorite class in high school. First of all, we had to wear these horrible gymsuits, one-piece numbers that snapped up the front. They were hideous looking things, as you can see from the Featured Image. No girl looked good in them, no… Read More

Wow, blue books! So many memories! I considered calling the story “Blank Space” — because there was always a lot more blank space than writing in my blue books — but figured this crowd wouldn’t know the Taylor Swift song, so I went with a 1970 song that applies equally well to my exam-taking experience.… Read More

The driving age in New Jersey, where I grew up, was seventeen for some reason, even though in almost every other state in the union it was sixteen. Not only that, you had to be seventeen before you could even get your learner’s permit. I turned seventeen on August 30, 1968, and two weeks later… Read More

At my elementary school, which I attended from 1956 to 1962, we never hid under our desks or heard the phrase “duck and cover.” We had our own fallout shelter to protect us from the Russians. The school was a large building, three stories plus a basement, which took up (in my memory at least)… Read More

In 1965, Tom Lehrer recorded the song “Pollution,” purporting to give advice to a foreign traveler visiting the US. If you visit American city You will find it very pretty Just two things which you must beware Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air. At the time it seemed funny, since usually it… Read More

Let me tell you how it will be There’s one for you, nineteen for me ‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman The Beatles, who had grown up poor, weren’t very happy to discover once they were making oodles of money that the British government was going to take most of it. Not sure… Read More