Lily Tomlin once said, “I always wanted to be someone, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” I know the feeling.  Nearly ten years have passed since writer Susan Stoner and I began the book talk show, Just Read It. I had dreams of becoming the next Bill Moyers. How

“The rubicon (sic) has been crossed. The fire of revolution has been lit.”  So wrote a representative of the white supremacist group the Proud Boys on Telegram, after the January 6, 2021 insurrection.  (“Capitol Insurrection,…” by Cassie Miller and Hannah Gais, Southern Po

Former late-night talk show host, Jon Stewart stuck his foot in a puddle the other day and tried to retrieve it without getting his trousers wet. He said he was riffing with friends on his podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart when he joked that the goblins at Gringotts’s Bank in th

The woman on Facebook swelled with outrage when I responded to her attack on the Kyle Rittenhus jury after they’d acquitted the young man of murder. My thought was different from hers.  I said we needed to trust our institutions even though we sometimes suffer disappointments. A ju

As I trawl the internet in search of information for this blog, I recently came across Thomas Friedman’s question in his New York Times column. (11-10-21). If people won’t wear masks during a pandemic, how will they endure the discomforts attendant with fighting climate c

At the end of each year, my stockbroker calls to talk about my portfolio and give me an assessment of the taxes I will owe.  I appreciate his concern, but I’m also aware he’s giving me a mental health check-up: am I lucid enough to make financial decisions? At 85, I sometimes fee

When my mother moved into assisted living, I became the landlord for her half of the duplex.  My first tenant was an art historian with a Ph.D. He’d moved to Oregon after working several years as an adjunct instructor at a midwestern university. Perhaps he hoped to find tenured wor

                                                    Even the toughest road will lead to a sunrise.

Forty-five years had passed before a former student emailed me.  His first remark didn’t come as a surprise. I’d heard versions of it before. “I’ve always thought of you as a maiden lady rather than an old maid.”  When I made no reply, the man prodded. “A maiden lady is