Suprise Me

We married after I graduated from Brandeis in Waltham, MA in 1974. I went home to Huntington Woods, MI to prepare for the wedding. Dan lived in the Boston area with his parents, so found our first apartment at 1105 Lexington Street, in Waltham, almost in Lexington. He worked in Waltham and within two months,… Read More

There are many poets whose work I cherish. For instance, Robert Frost. I can easily recite all four stanzas of “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and most of “The Road Not Taken,” although I don’t recall ever intentionally trying to memorize them. I love anything by e. e. cummings. I don’t know any… Read More

...this day would prove full of little revelations about Dad.  Read More

My mother was insecure in life and insecure in the kitchen. Having me around made her nervous, so I was forbidden to watch. I didn’t learn to cook in her kitchen…a story for a different day. With her limited cooking skills, she cooked the same menu every week: Swiss Steak on Monday (barely edible –… Read More

Birthdays have always been a big deal to me. I was born on my father’s birthday, which was very special to me, even in the years when I wasn’t close to him. My middle sister was born two days before my mother’s birthday, and I always wished she could have waited another 48 hours to… Read More

Under the Andalusian Sky We booked a biking vacation to Spain based partly on the romantic sounding name, Under the Andalusian Sky. The itinerary included Seville, Cordoba and Granada and the catalogue hinted at their exotic and diverse history.  We did some research and learned Hispania – today’s Spain – was ruled by Romans then… Read More

I walked into my college alumni party on my birthday last month; a cold day in December, which also happened to be my 65th birthday. I was greeted by many from the Brandeis administration whom I knew. While chatting with one, she said, “Do you recognize him from your class, Betsy? He’s doing an interesting… Read More

I stood there in the heavy underbrush with tears in my eyes and a broken heart.... Read More

1967. The Summer of Love was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was going to turn sixteen at the end of August — which meant that I had been claiming to be sixteen for months. I thought I was very sophisticated and wise. Retrospect readers may have already seen… Read More

"...to escape this deepening Twilight Zone of thoughtless reacting to an imaginary world of maufactured facts." Read More