Experience

“Carole, this is your Uncle.” “Uncle George, what a wonderful surprise! How are you?” Last August, I mentioned Uncle George, and again in early March of this year after a bicycle accident landed him in ICU. He spent five weeks in the hospital followed by a few weeks...

Enemies

It is a chilly Halloween night in Connecticut, and Paul McCartney sings “Yesterday” on my transistor radio. We neighborhood kids walk the dark rural roads holding flashlights for the younger trick-or-treaters like my sister. At ten going on eleven, she doesn’t need my...

Tree Knots

“I’d like to be a tree,” said actress Katharine Hepburn during her 1981 interview on the TV program 20/20. “What kind of tree?” Barbara Walters asked as a follow up. “An oak because they are strong and pretty.” She didn’t mention that oak tree leaves and acorns are...

West Side Story

I’m under ten years old, anticipating that magical double-digit landmark, and whirling around the living room in my pajamas, waving scarves and wrapping them around me. “I feel pretty, oh, so pretty,” I sing. On the stereo, my father plays the soundtrack of West Side...

Martha

For thirteen years, starting in the mid-80s, I drove a tan-brown four-door, standard transmission 1983 Nissan Maxima named Martha. She had leather seats, an automatic sunroof and state-of-the-art voice prompts. “Key is in the ignition,” she’d say. “Thank you, Martha,”...