Last year on this blog I wrote about my friend and former teaching colleague David F and his passion for sports, especially NCAA basketball. (See MR OCTOBER) Sadly David died some months later, much too soon. Jane Addams Vocational HS in the South Bronx where David and I met, and where I worked for almost 30 years, was historically an all-girls school. When by mandate all the city’s vocational high schools became co-ed, Jane Addams continued to attract a large majority...
I happen to be a tea drinker, but I do like the smell of coffee brewing, and when the coffee smells especially good I think of my mother-in-law Hermine. My mother was a very good cook, but Hermine was an extraordinary one. I, on the other hand, never prided myself much on my own culinary skills. (See COOKING WITH GAS, Oct 26, 2013.) I did try however, and over the years turned out meals for our family of three with no memorable disasters. In fact I once made a roast...
When my husband turned 60 he bought himself a birthday present – a light green Ford Thunderbird convertible. Needless to say he loves that car, and although I’d always thought of cars as basic transportation, I must confess I love that T-Bird too! At first Danny was hesitant to let me get behind the wheel, but we have a second car so in fact I don’t drive the T-Bird very often. But one recent, fateful day I had to transport some stuff across town and my car was in...
I was a young stay-at-home mom with a 9 month-old baby boy when we moved to the city in the late 1970s – a perfect confluence of time, place and circumstance! In those early years Noah and I spent lots of time in the Carl Schurz Park playground, the Central Park zoo and the library, and making the rounds of birthday parties and play dates and a myriad of children’s activities at the museums and elsewhere around the city. And as every parent knows, seeing the world...
It is with a broken heart I write that my sister Laurie died in Rockville on July 22 at age 61 after a long battle with MS. Laurie spent the last years of her life at Potomac Valley Nursing Center, and for their compassionate care, that of the wonderful JSSA hospice team, and many others in Maryland who gave our family comfort and support, I will be ever grateful. Mr Rogers told us in times of tragedy to look for the helpers, and we found them. But although Laurie’s death was...