Suprise Me

Fifty cents an hour: That’s what I got for pulling weeds from a brick patio and clay tennis court, which I was also expected to water and roll.  My employer: my father.  Still, it felt good — to actually earn my weekly allowance. photo by Test Prep Seminars But what felt even better was to be… Read More

Example 1: High School, 1968. Trigonometry test. I walked by the desk of a girl I liked – not romantically, but a nice friend. I looked at her test sheet, and quietly said words to the effect: “problem 12 – divide by two.” She did, thereby earning 5 more points. My rationale: She obviously understood… Read More

Aunt Babs and Uncle Paul I’ve written about all my aunts and uncles before. (See Call Me by Their Names) Here’s more about my wonderful aunt Babs and uncle Paul,  high school sweethearts who met as kids in the Rockaways. Family legend has it that when he was in medical school at NYU,  and Babs was… Read More

The Goops, they lick their fingers, And the Goops, they lick their knives; They spill their broth on the tablecloth, Oh, they lead disgusting lives! Read More

A favorite teacher lives forever in our hearts. Read More

“Tell me what you read, and I can tell you what you are.” A man said, “I read Spinoza, Shakespeare, Plato and Kant.” Read More

Neither the nondescript stores and the black wilderness of the Meadowlands on one side, nor the dark cemetery dotted with barely visible white tombstones on the other, gave me any assistance. Read More

While prejudice takes different forms in different eras, I fear it never really leaves us. Read More

Someone said “We need some music,” so I got up, stumbled dizzily to the nearby grand piano, and began to play the Copland. Read More

Then one day I read a story about a sea monster... Read More