Suprise Me

The Perfect Brass Lamp It often takes so little to make this wannabe interior decorator happy! I’m always on the lookout for one more throw pillow,  or a new piece of artwork,  or a knick-knack to grace the coffee table.  Or a new set of bath towels,  or a set of dishes,  or a new… Read More

As one of our guides said, “They disappeared.” Only their shoes remained behind. Some of them were so tiny. Read More

What sounds will the next generation simulate? The silence of eyes staring at screens? Read More

My grandfather, mother and great grandmother Louise Stone Carswell holding me 1945.  I grew up hearing colorful family stories about our English, Irish and Scottish roots. My grandmother would skim down the list of names and dates in an old bible and tell me what she’d heard about our ancestors. My dad’s parents had similar… Read More

A comforter Of mottled gray-black clouds To hide beneath. Read More

Neighbors from my early years to my later years...how they became a piece of my heart. Read More

In 1967, I left my hometown in Michigan to move to Chicago with Fred, who would be starting medical school. Before I moved, I received several dire warnings from the women in my family. My great-aunt Sarah shared that she had read several cases in The Jewish Daily Forward’s “A Bintel Brief” about women who… Read More

I have already written about losing my parked BMW in 2003 (Finding the Car). Therefore, I will go in a different direction today. During the summer of 1971, I worked as a counselor at the Jewish Community Center Day Camp, situated next to my temple in Oak Park, MI, not too far from my home.… Read More

My cousin recently sent me this picture, which I had never seen before, taken around 1925. Read More

This is the story of the prom nobody remembers. Literally. All I know is who I went with and what I wore. Jeff, the boy I had been dating since New Year’s Eve of senior year, was a sophomore at Rutgers, but came home every weekend to see me. So when I asked him to… Read More