Suprise Me

She wanted me to be her instrument; I just wanted to be her fearless union leader. Read More

A dad's teachings can come in a simple gesture of kindness. Read More

Each year, everyone complained that we were not spending enough time with them. Read More

Look What They’re Done to Your Pear, Milton Glaser! Lynn Truss who wrote Eats,  Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation  is a woman after my own heart.   She wishes for a ‘grammar police force’  that would hunt down and arrest merchants with ungrammatical signs on their storefronts and others who abuse the… Read More

When I first saw this Retro prompt, a David Sedaris essay* came to mind. Here, Sedaris laments the lack of worthwhile accessories for men. “[Accessories” for men aren’t nearly as interesting as women’s,” he writes. “I have no use for cuff links or suspenders, and while I’ll occasionally pick up a new tie, it hardly… Read More

Overture.  The Middletown Ct. Police Station—Bartok’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion. Before beginning my job as a substitute teacher, I traveled to the police department for a fingerprint security check.  The officer, a large friendly African American interviewed me. “Where will you be teaching?” “Middletown High School.” “Oh,” he warningly replied. “Do you know… Read More

My protests at San Jose State. After two years at California’s very conservative college, Cal Poly SLO, I went to San Jose State to get a more complete education, including some political action . Read More

Let us set aside the mechanical act of moving the clock hands forward, and think instead on the clock's underlying  connection to the seasonal changes in our natural world... Read More

I refused to watch the previous inauguration, More accurately called the abomination, But teary-eyed in hopeful celebration, I watched this one with at least half the nation.   Don’t get me wrong, I am all for Joe, But if you ask almost anyone, the women stole the show. Not just the performances of Lady Gaga… Read More

When I think about “first times” the one event that comes to mind is the first time I stepped into a gay bar. For the great majority of you, there is probably not any comparable experience you can point to and relate to this experience. You grew up with it being perfectly acceptable—in the right circumstances—for you to… Read More