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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The Amazing Technicolor Club Chair and Ottoman

I’m not a fashionista,  nor a whiz in the kitchen,  nor good with make-up like some gals.   I’m a wanna-be interior decorator and I love thinking about color schemes,  and curtains and wallpaper,  and rugs and lamps.   And I actually collect pitchers and bowls. And I like reading decorating magazines,  and refinishing and reupholstering and rearranging the furniture.   Sometimes my husband comes home and asks,   “Now where did you move that little table that was...

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Never Forget

Some of the things I witnessed 20 years ago during that awful September week in New York are seared in my memory and I’ll never forget.  (See 9/11) The disbelief and horror as we watched TV news clips of a plane hitting the south tower of the World Trade Center,   then the tower in flames,   and then another plane hitting the north tower. And my friend’s brother who worked a few blocks from the towers telling us later that he saw the jumpers with his own eyes. And a man selling...

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Fluffy and the Alligator Shoes

The house I grew up in had many lovely architectural features – a fireplace,  a lovely stairwell,  and a beautiful oval stained glass window that was in my mother’s closet. I loved sitting in that closet.  It was a cozy and private place for a child to play,  and the light coming through the stained glass would bathe the closet floor in lovely colors as I sat between the windowed wall and the wall opposite that held a rod for my mother’s clothing and a shelf below for her...

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