17 Gas Stations

Why won’t men stop to ask directions? The answer may be in John Gray’s well-known book Men are From Mars,  Women are From Venus.   Or in another fascinating book about gender differences entitled You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation by Deborah Tannen. Tannen,  a linguistics professor,  coined the word  “genderlect”  to describe the cultural differences between men and women that are reflected in the differing ways they think and converse – in...

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With This Ring

I’m not superstitious or especially sentimental,  and that’s a good thing because over the years I’ve lost some precious pieces of jewelry – two or three watches,  innumerable earrings,  and even a few wedding rings. When we married my husband gave me a simple band – not of gold or silver but of jade.   I lost it. He also once gave me a lovely pink opal.   One day I looked down at my hand and although the ring was still on my finger,   I saw that the opal had fallen out...

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2026 McGraw

Leaving Manhattan recently on a wintry Friday afternoon we hit rush hour and my husband turned off the highway to avoid it traffic.  We were taking local Bronx streets when I realized we were about to pass my old neighborhood,  and we decided to drive down my old street. I’ve written before about 2026 McGraw Ave,  the house I grew up in,  and that I last saw a dozen years ago when I went to a wonderful neighborhood reunion. (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home,  Mr Bucco and the Ginger...

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To an Athlete Dying Young

I remember that day so vividly,  it’s hard to believe it’s been almost 60 years. In the fall of 1963 I was in my senior year at NYU Heights.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family and College Theatre) I was a member of the Hall of Fame Players,  our college theatre group,    and on Friday,  November 22th  we were rehearsing a play when someone came running towards the stage crying out that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  Of course we  stopped the rehearsal and amidst our shock, ...

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Laundry Day in London

Remembering gentler times when we weren’t so wary of door-to-door salesmen and had more trust in the kindness of strangers, I think about laundry day in London. In the early 1970s my husband had the chance to work there for a year and we grabbed it! I took a leave of absence from my teaching job,  we sublet our apartment,  and packed up our raincoats and brollies.   We couldn’t take our cat unless we quarantined him first for six months,  so we boarded him...

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