Columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
I stopped by to visit an old friend in Chicago last Sunday, and by “old” I mean 96 years but with all his faculties intact, which makes him a natural wonder you could exhibit on the carnival circuit for two bucks a head, children under ten admitted free with a parent: SEE MAN BORN ON […]
Read MoreA couple hours to kill on a humid afternoon in a small town in Massachusetts and rather than sit looking at hotel wallpaper I took a little walk. A pretty town, well-kept, especially in the historic district where we tourists congregate—old shopfronts that once sold hardware, dry goods, groceries, now selling candles, collectibles and coffee, […]
Read MoreI was at a playground with my daughter the other day, reading “The Two Kinds of Decay” by Sarah Manguso (good book) and watching my girl as she stood at the perimeter of children playing and studied them, exactly as I did when I was a kid, working up the nerve to plunge into the […]
Read MoreEighty-six percent of the American people believe the price of gasoline will climb to five bucks a gallon this year, a big shift in public opinion from a year ago when most people felt that oil prices were spiking high and would soon return to normal—which is 35 cents a gallon, same as a pack […]
Read MoreHot night, New York: a little breeze in the trees in the deep stone canyons as I look out my window, thousands of little lighted windows of private lives, one of which is mine. I’m reminded of this by the fact that a hundred feet away, a man stands at a window looking through binoculars […]
Read MoreSchool is winding down and small children are staring out the windows at freedom and counting the days until the heavy hand of grammar and spelling will be lifted from their backs. My sandy-haired daughter dove into the pool on Memorial Day and has been amphibious ever since. She loves swimming and has to be […]
Read MoreThree-hundred thousand bikers spent Memorial Day weekend roaring around Washington in tribute to our war dead, and I stood on Constitution Avenue Sunday afternoon watching a river of them go by, waiting for a gap in the procession so I could cross over to the Mall and look at pictures. The street had been closed […]
Read MoreThe Current Occupant tossed Nazis into a speech last week, something he rarely does since it only reminds people of Dick Cheney. He likened those who would negotiate with terrorists to those who tried to appease the Nazis, an awkward comparison, since Nazis were self-defined and wore the swastika proudly, and terrorists are anybody we […]
Read MoreThe beauty of May is that the whole country is more or less on the same page, called Spring, and Spring is Spring, in Minnesota or California or Georgia or Vermont. Slightly different birds and flowers, same feeling. April is blowing snow up north, and by June my friends in Georgia will be chained to […]
Read MoreThe last time I witnessed a woman becoming a mother, it wasn’t anything like the frilly sentiments of Mother’s Day. She lay on her back, perspiring heavily and yelling, “Oh my God, why did you do this to me? I’ll never forgive you in a hundred years. I hope you hurt like this someday. Give […]
Read More