Suprise Me
From Conservative Cal Poly to San Jose State
Prompted By Protests
/ Stories
Eating Like an American
Prompted By What We Ate
/ Stories
Fifteen Miles to 14A
Prompted By Highways and Byways
/ Stories
Not a Dream #1
Prompted By Disasters
/ Stories
“There would have been no rescue here!” The fire marshal held my arm as fiercely as my gaze, neither of us paying attention to the breast milk leaking across my shirt. I tore my eyes away from his and tried again to look at the house, still reeking of wet char, a crazy perimeter of crime tape separating the ugly remains of our home from the gorgeous June morning.
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The Wheat Field
Prompted By Mind the Gap
/ Stories
The Wheat Field My grandparents emigrated from eastern Europe, and my parents lived through a world war – my father sent overseas while my mother worked for the Army on the homefront. (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home) And like all families there were skeletons in the closet, and there were suicides on both sides that…
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And now for an unexpected interruption of logical sequence
Prompted By Comic Relief
/ Stories
He would hold the instrument behind his back in his left hand, the bow behind his back in the right, and play. Once he had your attention, he would proceed to lie down on the living room carpet and continue, with no loss of rhythm or resonance
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The Power of Connection
Prompted By Reconnecting
/ Stories
Connection is the lifeblood of civilization, I think. It has become more apparent in the past year when we have been so separated from one another because of the pandemic. Loneliness, grief, depression have made life all but intolerable for so many of us. I am someone who enjoys her own company, but I do…
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Here Comes the Sun
Prompted By Changing Times
/ Stories
...although the time shifts of DST have been regular occurrences my entire life, only since 2012 have they become somewhat important to me.
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Good Funerals
Prompted By Final Farewell
/ Stories
Funerals were forbidden when I was growing up. They were mysterious events my parents attended with other adults. My first introduction to this final rite of passage was my grandfather Philip Krut’s funeral on May 2, 1972. I was 26 years old and the mother of a one-year-old. Did I attend alone? Were my husband…
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Bright College Days
Prompted By An Unforgettable Person
/ Stories
Most people associate the word “tutor” with someone hired to give individual remedial instruction in a course that one is having trouble with. However at Harvard, following the model of Oxford and Cambridge, students have tutorials in their field of concentration in their second, third, and fourth years. Sophomore tutorial is in a small group,…
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