It’s a feeling I know very well. It’s not a bad feeling if you know home is not far and your directions are sure. You can put up with the cold because comfort is waiting and you are sure of…
The ushers hustled everyone to their seats. They wore the Jones Beach State Park uniform. Blue and white. There were seahorse emblems on their hats and epaulets. Limousines were parked in their special lot while VIP guests ate 5 star…
“Kessler does not raise flags. Kessler burns flags!!!!!” And so that was that. There would be no flag-raising today, and the flag pole stood unadorned all day. No one batted an eyelash. Such was life at Camp Da-Ro, a summer…
If you know me, you’ve heard my story of being everywhere but home when I was growing up. Military Schools, full time sleep-away kid-sitters, summer camps. It was a weird blend of disadvantaged and privileged running side by side. The…
She was different and that always attracted me. Compared to the other conservative, mostly cute girls at this small midwestern university, she was more aloof, dressed in a more sophisticated way, and carried herself with a sort of slow moving…
Between 10 and 4. That’s my favorite time to be behind the wheel. At 10pm the world is shutting down. At 4am it’s beginning to stir again. In between, I have the world to myself. It’s never about wandering, that’s…
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea. 10 year old me, already on the verge of being unmanageable, sent to board with a woman and her two young daughters. But my mother, needing some place to park me 24*7*365…
Oh, we were pissed. Never mind that we were going to see a show in what is arguably the best and most iconic outdoor performance space in the country. This was the annual mid-summer concert outing for Camp Da-Ro. I…
“If you screw up a dish bad enough, just serve it anyway and call it ‘Chicago Style’.” – Anonymous “Why are you so angry?” My much younger co-worker, whom I generally admire asked me. We were in a chat group…
“Edifying: instructive or informative in a way that improves the mind or character.” “But does it edify?” He let his voice rise with each syllable as he pronounced it. Then he looked at the audience, waiting while it sunk in.…