1. MY FOLKS ARE FIRST-TO-SECOND generation Americans, who (along with my immigrant and immigrant-descended relatives) taught me that, “In America, you can do anything you want as long as you play nicely with the others.” To them, that meant speaking,…
Tag: people
Ones I have known, if even tangentially.
Pithyism #2<1
MARRIAGE IS NOT A MATTER of being with the one you get along with better than anyone, so much as one with whom not getting along is preferable to being alone — and without whom you wouldn’t get along at…
How To Say Thank You
THE ROOT OF RELIGION, SOME say, is our need to express gratitude for being alive. Sometimes we need to express it to others, but don’t know quite how. Here’s one way: http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/. (Note to hipster friends who don’t dig the…
Pithyism #6,001
IN THE 10,000-YEAR-WIDE BUBBLE that is civilized collective consciousness, every death is the end of an era.
Pithyism #2=1
OF THOSE THINGS BETTER UNDERSTOOD by one sex than the other: Women, the dynamics of community; men, the dynamics of solitude.
Companionable Advice
“JUST RELAX. BREATHE. LET THE tide go out in your mind.” — Me just now to the companion animal, who insisted I post it.
HY”D Janusz Korczak – 1878.1942
TEACHING JEWISH KIDS THEIR HERITAGE was, to me, one of life’s greatest joys; I began doing it for pre-B’nei Mitzvah students (read: 11-12 year-olds) in 2000, retiring when I got sick in 2008. It was the high point of any…
One Nice Thing
IF YOU ARE AS SNARKED-OUT as I am, sick and tired of the recreational character assassination which passes for modern culture, please: 1.) Click on the “Comments” link below. 2.) Add either something nice someone did for you, or something…
One Day In 2010, With Feeling
STAN CLARK IS ON FACEBOOK. That means different things to different people, and nothing at all to those who don’t know that he’s Ann’s dad, a World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor who, along with his young sweetheart…
Sometimes I Hate This Job
I’M PUTTING OFF WRITING A eulogy. Doesn’t everyone? Linda Tomback is a good friend who used to attend our Saturday morning Torah study. Her death is the eighth in our congregation in the past two years; the first two were…
Letter To A Dead Friend
Dear Sputnik, The attached photo of you arrived from a mutual friend two days ago, on what should have been your 48th birthday. I say “should” because it’s a primate conceit that the world be arranged according to our convenience.…
The Brotherhood of the Dunk
YOU SEE THEM CASTING FURTIVE kitchenward gazes after a good dinner of roasted chicken or perhaps beef or lamb, excusing themselves with a piece of bread and trying not to run. Shortly afterward, stifled sighs waft back to the dining…