October 2019
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My father had many admirable traits. He was absolutely honest — "honest to a fault" even. He had a fine sense of humor. He was compassionate and though he affected stoicism, he was deeply romantic and emotional — tears came easy to him. He was a self-effacing but diligent worker. He was a fine, graceful…
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Here's a memory from my youth. Let's say it's the early '50s. I'm a thoughtless, self-absorbed adolescent, nominally studying at Erasmus Hall but in fact not paying much mind to schoolwork. It's a Sunday dinner, so I've probably just come home from playing several hours of schoolyard basketball or softball. We're at the dining room…
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It's not the most artistic poster (way too crowded a field) but it's a heck of a movie. It's a familiar film noir subject: guy (in this case), Eddie Rico, a former mobster, tries to go straight, but his past catches up with him. The first couple of scenes establish him as legitimate…
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When we arrived at Dead Elm Farm in 1968, we were confronted with a derelict silo. It had not been used for many years and displayed a Pisa-like lean. We thought it was a hazard and decided to take it down, which we did by the simple expedient of tying one end of a rope…
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Here's a marvelously instructive tale about culinary practice, custom, superstition, religion and how knowledge passes from generation to generation. We're in the 1940s. My mother was sitting with her childhood friend, Estelle Fendrick, who was preparing a chicken soup. My mother (this is exactly how she told me the story) noticed that Estelle broke the…
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It shouldn't take more than a moment, dear grandchildren, to figure out exactly what building is under construction. It's the early spring of 1978 and the house that we've lived in these last forty or so years is rising out of the ground. It may be a little difficult, but if you scrutinize closely, you'll…
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The famished waif with the tousled hair is NGP; the naked one-year-old with the swollen belly is Ben. There's a rain barrel — why? There's a gas-powered lawn mower, so brand new that it still bears its sales tag. There's some black plastic pipe and what might be a horseshoe on the floor. A couple…
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In the 1940s of ancient memory, it was a rare treat when my father would bring home, on a summer evening, a pint of ice cream to be shared among the five of us. This was in the days of "ice boxes" and before the refrigerators that replaced them had freezer compartments — so the…