The period of dormancy for deciduous trees is so short here in Northern California. Leaves turn in November and many still cling to their branches past Christmas. In late January the air filled with the buzz of chainsaws and the shouts of workers high in the trees calling to their fellows on the ground as…
Read more
The last time an egret triggered me to write a post was in the summer of 2018 when we were visiting California for a few months, interrupting our stay on Sunnyhill in Hartwick. In 2018 an egret flew across 880 as we were driving from Palo Alto to Livermore, a wild thing in a man…
Read more
It was a wonderful place to make noise. The large, high-ceilinged, lobby had a tile floor and hard surfaces everywhere, so every noise echoed beautifully. We loved to come up the outside steps with our roller skates on and skate across the lobby making a fabulous racket. That tile floor was so perfectly smooth, it…
Read more
Ooops! This should have been published between Dad – part 2 and Prolet. I inadvertently left it in draft status. I suppose that coming to terms with my parents’ humanity and frailties has been an essential part of my own maturing. My Dad was, in so many ways, a wonderful father, and I am deeply…
Read more
One of the great pleasures of living in Pleasant Hill (in California – where we will be for another 19 months) is walking along the canal-side trail that intersects our street. It’s a lovely trail, full of friendly walkers, many, like me, with their dog companions. Just a few days after we moved here in…
Read more
My older sister Shayne, of blessed memory, was born in 1946, and I was born in ‘48, early Boomers. Our parents, Shayne and I shared the single bedroom of my mother’s parents’ one bedroom apartment, and my grandparents slept in the living room. That was the arrangement from the end of the war, when Mom…
Read more
He was the best of dads, he was the worst of dads. It’s an appealing line, but not quite true. My Dad was, simply, a great dad. His failings were not as a father, but as a husband and as a friend. It isn’t his failings I remember when I think of him, nor are…
Read more
On Friday morning Jewish women around the world prepare for the Sabbath, cooking, baking and cleaning at double time to get ready for a day of rest. My grandmother, Goldie, having joined the Communist Party as a young woman had long since given up religious practice. But some habits persist, and on some Friday mornings…
Read more