Tag: memoir
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Summer Camps
One of the things about New York City, that many people probably don’t realize, is how many wild places there are. Tracts of land that house bird sanctuaries, giant sprawling wetlands and forested nature preserves. There is lots of ocean front as well, lined by beaches like Rockaway or Coney Island and little inlets and…
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Feels Like The First Time
It’s almost impossible for me to figure out the first book I ever really got lost in. Too long ago. I was a book-worm from a very very young age. I remember a teacher telling my mother I could read at the 12th grade level when I was in 3rd grade. It was a way…
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When I Was You
It was something we said to each other as children…our sense of time and place were malleable; we had not yet been indoctrinated into the order of things as dictated by our elders. Put it another way, our outlook was natural and probably closer to the truth than the artificial constructs human society has created.…
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The Last Drop
“It is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but all that which previously has flowed out…” – Seneca . Neither here Neither there Neither anywhere . I wonder what they thought When they found him . Not quite ours Not quite yours Not quite theirs . I wonder what they thought When they…
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George And The Postman
Uncle George pulled his black Dodge sedan into the garage, just like he did every other night. He closed the garage door and unlocked the side door to the house. Beauty was waiting patiently for him to arrive home, in the kitchen, right where she belonged. He walked to the front door and she walked…
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Advice To My Teenage Self
“The only way to break a law of physics is with another law of physics.” – Ensign LaForge, Star Trek – Picard The conceit is that somehow you could apply the thousands and thousands of days of accumulated dents and dings; the accumulated triumph and trauma and be something different than what you were. But…
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Uncle George’s House
The grownups visited in the basement That basement that George was so proud of He paneled it in that 1960’s style Cheap, but effective, like a boys clubhouse – Leonia and George hosted parties and dinners down there She cooked and he tended behind the bar he built Gossip and politics; One cousin was lazy…
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Strange Changes
I just passed on an opportunity for a meeting with other professionals in my field. I know many of these people, we are like minded; we are friends. But I ain’t going. The flu is going around, there’s a new variant of Covid circulating and I have a ski vacation planned in 3 weeks. I…
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Island Memories
It was before most cars had air-conditioning; so even on the hottest days we drove with the windows rolled down. Always in that black ’63 Impala, or later on, the blue one. And finally the Nova. My grandparents were working class people with union jobs. They bought American. They bought Chevy. WMCA New York was…
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Yes, You Can Be Friends
Don’t Be A Soulless Weasel. Someone I follow on LinkedIn, a “career expert” with a lot of followers threw this out. I never found myself disagreeing with her before. But this time she lost me. She was adamant: “Managers cannot be friends with subordinates.” There are other prohibitions that so-called wise people like to throw…