Blog
John and I walk past the National Guard Armory in our neighborhood every day. Yesterday morning, we noted that the parking lot was full, which meant that the soldiers were assembling. We saw uniformed personnel readying communication trailers; beside it a truck with a big Red Cross on the side. Today, those vehicles are gone….
An article in Saturday’s LA Times about Maronite Catholics and their dying language sparked a vivid memory of attending a Church service at the Maronite Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, many years ago. My father’s family…Arab Christians…emigrated to the U.S. in 1913. Their village Jdita, Lebanon, is on the road from Beirut to Damascus. Back…
Don’t Just Sit There Scrolling: Do Something!
Good grief, I don’t want to be writing about Donald Trump. I have so many other things I want to do with my days. I have a book I’m trying to get published. I have bins and bins of papers I dragged from Milton, Massachusetts, to Manhattan Beach, California, ten years ago. These are things…
Progress Report
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a compulsive writer. So, where I have been since April? Not writing any blog postings, that’s obvious. Let me tell you. It’s been over a year since I thought I had finished writing the book I’ve been compiling of my Uncle Joe’s stories. Which I started in…
376 Brush Hill Road, Milton, Massachusetts – Part I
We moved to 376 Brush Hill Road in September of 1956. I was nine years old, and my youngest sister, Karen, had just been born. She was kept in the hospital a few extra days so my parents could get us moved in before they brought the new baby home. Her imminent birth was what…
“There are a million stories out there.”
I always knew I was a writer. That I would spend my life writing. I started with the nonsensical curlicues that precede writing (and reading)–filling line after line in the kind of small bound notebook the could easily be had for a few pennies at “the Five and Ten.” By the time I was in…
Those of us born in the years immediately after World War II grew up surrounded by Veterans. There was a framed photograph of many a “Dad” in uniform quietly on display in many a living room. More often, though, photos, and medals, service ribbons, and dog tags were tucked away in a desk or dresser…
A couple of weeks ago my daughter asked me what book she could read to help her understand what’s going on in The Middle East. Ha! One book? My instant response was to ask her which Middle East she wanted to understand: Israel and the Palestinian conflict? Syria and its civil war? Yemen and its…
I’m still peeking into–and tossing away–old calendars. What a difference a decade makes! In 1984, the nest was somewhat empty (A recent college grad camped out on the third floor is not a child who needs driving around or taking care of—and is actually pretty nice to have around.) And I was cutting back on freelance work….
What ever possessed me to lug ten-plus pounds of old planner books along when we moved across the country? In fact, why did I save them from one year to the next? Was it a fantasy that some day someone would want to write my biography—a compulsion freeze time in amber—insurance against lost memories? Did…