Suprise Me

He traced his commitment to wearing hats to his first jury trial. Read More

We understood we were trespassing. But we figured that folks who lived in a region like this must do this all the time, right? Just drive up and take a quick dip? Read More

The yen of some folks to mix the presence of a dead body with the innocence of a child—“Come here sweetie and kiss your Great Aunt Sally goodbye.”—is another mystery of our cultural past. Read More

Then someone said, "You guys get up there." Bud and I looked at each other. Why the hell not? Read More

The girls wore long gowns and white gloves, and the boys wore tuxedos. The girls also carried bouquets of long-stemmed roses in colors that were coordinated with our gowns. Read More

This is more about books and reading and being a weird little kid than about any single book. I was a nerd. A geek. A prototypical Poindexter (a nickname I was actually saddled with for a time). Books didn’t beat me up the way other kids did, so I loved them with all my heart… Read More

Fifty cents an hour: That’s what I got for pulling weeds from a brick patio and clay tennis court, which I was also expected to water and roll.  My employer: my father.  Still, it felt good — to actually earn my weekly allowance. photo by Test Prep Seminars But what felt even better was to be… Read More

I can relate completely to the tenuous existence of goldfish as pets to young boys. My first foray into owning goldfish started well enough, with a large bowl, fresh water, some decorations, and a fresh container of fish food. For the first few days, everything went, well, swimmingly. Finally, though the time came to clean the fishbowl.… Read More

. . . it looked to be some form of ritual, the Shunning of the Water Read More

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