The Great Pickleball Noise War I was an adult when I started playing tennis seriously,  but try as I might to ratchet up my game I seemed to have plateaued at intermediate level 3.  I was too good to enjoy playing with beginners,  and not good enough to play with advanced players who certainly didn’t… Read More

Silence – A Sonnet   Oh, sacred hush, a balm for weary ears No traffic roars, no children shriek and play A gentle sigh, the rustle of dried leaves A symphony of quietude that lasts all day But wait, a fly! A buzzing, maddening drone Circling my head with taunting, tiny wings This blissful peace,… Read More

Nineteen sixty three unfolded into a year of beginnings. After years of post-adolescent frustration, I had sex for the first time. Having grown up in New England in the 1950s, nobody had told me or anyone else about the mysteries and techniques of copulation. There was no Joy of Sex, literally or figuratively. My parents… Read More

  No, I wasn’t pretending to be Batman, or Robin for that matter.  I left them where they belonged on the screen. It was a typical Saturday morning and my beloved grandpa, who I called Papa S., apparently a name I created, just drove up.  And yes, S stood for his last name Shulak, which… Read More

To an Athlete Dying Young I remember that day so vividly,  it’s hard to believe it was over 60 years ago. In the fall of 1963 I was in my senior year at NYU Heights.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family, The Fortune Cookie Candidate  and Theatre Dreams) I was a member of the college theatre group,  and… Read More

  Alright folks, here I am back to remind you that history isn’t always a dusty textbook. Sometimes, it’s a deranged sitcom with a laugh track that keeps getting stuck. Take 1963, for example. A year that went from “Ask not what your country can do for you” to “Hold my coca-cola while I watch… Read More

1963 was the year I became my own person with my own values. Read More

Thank you Danny Dunn! Thank you Danny Dunn.  Thank you Scholastic Books.  Thank you Dad. I’ve always loved to read.   Throughout elementary school, and especially in third grade, the best days were when the teacher handed out the scholastic books newsletter with an order form.  That year, I got two books. Both were, and likely… Read More

A self-prescribed book helped complete my recovery from self-anger, along with the help of a very good psychotherapist. Read More

Ulysses  Please don’t think I’m an insufferable literary snob if I tell you I’ve read Ulysses several times.   But in fact I have,  and I think it’s indeed a masterpiece,  and not at all as hard to read and understand as you may have been led to believe.  (See My Love Affair with James Joyce)… Read More