TODAY’S UPDATE! I canceled today’s appointment because I can’t prove I’m me. If I were a MAN who had never changed his name, I would be fine. But since I do NOT have marriage certificates from my first marriage —… Read More ›
Personal
TOUGH DECISIONS
Fandango’s Provocative Question #153 This isn’t a question I can answer. It’s not that I haven’t had any life-changing tough decision, but because I’ve had so many. Which one was the hardest? I can’t say because all of the hard ones… Read More ›
MY BITTER ROOTS
I am named after an aunt I never met. In my style of Jewish family, you don’t name babies after living people. Only after those who have passed. This is not true in all Jewish families. It depends on where… Read More ›
THE KOTEL
My favorite place in Jerusalem was the Western Wall, sometimes incorrectly called the “Wailing Wall.” In Hebrew, it’s Kotel — it rhymes with motel. I used to go to the Kotel to leave messages for God. We all believed messages left there… Read More ›
PLANS
Few of us have a realistic game plan right out of high school. We might think we do, but not long after we start college or end college and start work, we find the profession we prepared for isn’t it…. Read More ›
STUDY HARD. GET GOOD GRADES.
GRADES I don’t think either of my parents ever told me to “study hard” or to “get good (or better) grades.” I never got bad grades or brilliant ones. I didn’t study hard or usually, at all. Back then I… Read More ›
MEETING ALFRED EISENSTADT
In the early 1990s, Garry did a feature about Alfred Eisenstadt and Lois Maillou Jones, both of whom lived on the Vineyard and had been given Presidential Medals of Honor for their work. We became friends with both artists. Eisenstadt was… Read More ›
PICKING
Once upon a time, in a far away land, The Boss assigned me a secretary. Not part of a pool, but a whole person. With a master’s degree from Mt. Holyoke. Pretty daunting, me with my little B.A. from Hofstra…. Read More ›
ONCE UPON A TIME
Garry was watching an old movie, “A Letter to Three Wives.” He thought the whole concept of writing letters was kaput. No one writes letters anymore. We may dash off a note on a card, but a whole letter? “When,”… Read More ›
HARD DAYS FOR A CONSCIENCE
There are a lot of things we don’t know about the people who came before us. We don’t know how or why they dressed and spoke and related to each other as people in their society. We are fuzzy about… Read More ›
PAGING PONCE DE LEON
Carly Simon is in my head a lot these days singing, “You’re So Vain”. After decades of seeming perpetual youth in my career as a reporter, the portrait in my attic has become an illusion. It’s something with which most people… Read More ›
BITTER ROOTS
I am named after an aunt I never met. In my style of Jewish family, you don’t name babies after living people. Only after those who have passed. This is not true in all Jewish families. It depends on where… Read More ›