Suprise Me

Captain Born in a small town in New York’s Catskill Mountains,  my father remembered dancing around a bonfire as a six-year-old to celebrate the 1918 armistice. Two decades later when the US entered WWII he enlisted in the Army as a newly minted physician.   Assigned to the Charleston,  SC  Port of Embarkation,  he was… Read More

In 1967, I was one year out of college and living in Berkeley. The new wild world was all around me–long hair on everyone, patchouli scent emanating from every doorway, student protests and sidewalk jewelry shops on Telegraph Avenue, and always in the background (sometimes the foreground), rock ‘n roll, sex, and drugs. I was thrilled… Read More

My first typing experience was on an old Royal manual.  I could go like a bat outta hell on that thing, typing 80 words a minute with maybe one typo.  The other people in the office where I worked would sometimes stand around my desk and just watch me.  My boss bragged about his secretary’s… Read More

It's never too late to be Great. Read More

We were looking at a ridiculously expensive cut of meat that we were instructed to stud with truffles, brush with brandy, brown in butter, slather with a mixture of more butter blended with pâté, and finally wrap like a precious gem in a buttery dough. Read More

I read Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s obituary with great sadness and keen interest. She passed away in 2006, aged 52 from breast cancer. She was a leading mezzo-soprano of her day and, though I’d never heard her perform, our lives intersected at a few points. She had also attended the Interlochen Arts Camp in her youth,… Read More

In the end, she decided she didn’t want to break up the family, and returned, telling my father never to mention the idea of doing a PhD to her, EVER!  It was too late.  That was that. Read More

By the end of my first summer, the subtle pulse of the waves syncs with my own rhythm. I am hooked. The sand shark never gets me. Read More

Shortly after we married, in the mid-70s, we had a lot of friends living in New York City and we’d visit often, driving in, staying on the pullout sofa with Paul and Beth. Jeffrey and Susan, residents to this day, always had a pulse on what was au courant. In 1975 they told us about this… Read More

September 2, 1973 We began our honeymoon with an afterparty at a nearby restaurant. Several of our friends came along from the wedding; we shared some additional toasts at the bar before my brand-new husband and I drove to the airport to begin our long weekend away. Times being what they were, what with my… Read More