Suprise Me

  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

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

Neither rain, snow, sleet, nor gloom of night was going to deter us from our planned movie date. Read More

Now we can begin anew. Read More

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  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

Roussel was tall, elegant, very perceptive and demanding, but always kind and encouraging.  Read More

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

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

How a 4 hour interview lead to a 27 year career Read More