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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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The oak leaves are dried and curled. They float along sedately without, as far as I know, any purpose or any destination other than wherever the canal will take them. They obey only the laws of gravity and physics. Their passage seems peaceful, unhurried, until they come to the little weir where they are pulled…
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