If there were a fitting phrase to describe my academic prowess in elementary school, I believe I would have been described as an “airhead”, My elementary school reports were mediocre. My kindergarten report card was sprinkled with a few “N’s” for “Needs Improvement”, and the comment on my kindergarten report card was “talks too much…
Read More
Suprise Me
Thank you, Esther Perrin!
Prompted By Favorite Teacher
/ Stories
If there were a fitting phrase to describe my academic prowess in elementary school, I believe I would have been described as an “airhead”, My elementary school reports were mediocre. My kindergarten report card was sprinkled with a few “N’s” for “Needs Improvement”, and the comment on my kindergarten report card was “talks too much…
Read More
Memories
Prompted By The Things I Keep
/ Stories
I keep memories. The photo is me in 1972 wearing a cherished dress brought from Russia by my maternal grandmother in 1906. It was part of her trousseau, four years earlier. My mother and I were the only women in the family small enough to fit into it. When it became too fragile to wear,…
Read More
Tornado Warning
Prompted By Dating
/ Stories
Neither rain, snow, sleet, nor gloom of night was going to deter us from our planned movie date.
Read More
Good Riddance — A future retrospective
Prompted By Good Riddance
/ Stories
Now we can begin anew.
Read More
Snacks and Naps
Prompted By Kindergarten
/ Stories
We didn't have to sleep, but had to lie quietly for a time, which seemed like forever but couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 minutes.
Read More
Ethel and the Turkey Leg
Prompted By An Unforgettable Person
/ Stories
Ethel and the Turkey Leg Since my friend Ethel died recently at the age of 85, I’ve been thinking about what made her such a special soul. Ethel and I met in the 1980s at Jane Addams, the South Bronx vocational high school where she taught cosmetology and I ran the school library. Like…
Read More
Loved the material, loved the students
Prompted By An Unforgettable Person
/ Stories
Roussel was tall, elegant, very perceptive and demanding, but always kind and encouraging.
Read More
A brief audible history
Prompted By What We Listened To
/ Stories
Back in the early days of the Internet, I wrote for a short-lived interactive startup in Santa Monica. I was a practicing jazz musician at the time, so of course I needed the money. Before the interactive outfit folded I happily researched and wrote a brief musical history of Mozart, a jazz jukebox, a classical…
Read More
A Four Hour Interview Leads to a Twenty-seven Year Career
Prompted By Interviews
/ Stories

