When I was in the sixth grade, my town was large enough to support two  junior high schools, Lincoln and Garfield.  The posh kids went to Lincoln.  The poor kids went to Garfield where there was a flutter of gang activity.  At the time, I lived with my mother in a small, apartment

In the summer of 1947, I took a walking tour of Boulder Dam with my mother.  That’s when I met my first Texan, an encounter I never forgot.  Though it was hot, maybe 90 degrees, our guide for the afternoon paused above the dam’s large reservoir and asked us to look down.

The rich don’t think like us.  For example, some of the early blue-blooded dynasties like the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans, obtained their wealth by questionable means and sometimes on the backs of the American worker.  Today, not much has changed.  Three billionaires, Ber

When I was in high school, I had a counselor who referred to me as her late bloomer.  I suppose it was because I never had a date in those days, though I had friends enough.  At least, I seldom sat alone at lunch in the school cafeteria. Even so, I’ve never felt in sync wi

On Friday,  I complained I experience vertigo as a result of sharing the world with Donald Trump and his followers.  I don’t even know how to describe Trump.  Is he  a president or a cult leader?  A president or a would-be dictator?  Certainly, he is a celebrity.  As such, th

Of late, Donald Trump’s favorability rating has jumped to a high of 49 percent in one major poll.  I admit, I am puzzled, like a salmon swimming upstream while numbers of my species are headed toward the sea. Where are they going?  What are they thinking?  Okay, I get

Earnest Hemmingway observed, “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”   Yes, I do know.  Who hasn’t had a time in his or her life when sleep was more welcome than coping with daily challenges?  But sleep — too much or too l

Recently, an article appeared in a newsletter which reminded me that everyone has a story to tell. The one I was reading contained the recollections of a woman, near my age, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. She was seven at the time but retained vivid memories of her internm

I don’t click on Amazon much.  Their sales strategy bothers me. For example, why I should pay almost $200 a year for the benefit of “free” shipping.  Do I detect an oxymoron here?  No matter.  I’m a bricks-and-mortar person.   The last item I purchased was an electric to

I  heard it again today.  “Oh, I never read fiction.  I prefer non-fiction.” My molars dug into the side of my cheek so that I could hold my tongue. People who make this remark seem to imagine reading fiction is a frivolous pastime.  In my experience, men most often hold this