Several days before my eighth birthday I rode my bike into the path of a car on A1A. Riding my bike on A1A was strictly forbidden and as I swerved to avoid the car, I fell and broke my arm knowing that my parents were going to kill me.
It is easy to forget just how cold a home in Fort Lauderdale could get 50 years ago. My childhood home had floor-to-ceiling jalousie windows, which were only marginally more airtight than a screen, in every room and no heater. We shivered and froze through many a cold snap until January of 1968 when it
My mother attended a Catholic girls’ school during the Depression, and the nuns emphasized the importance of frugality. These early lessons made an impression on Mom, and until the end of her days she always loved a bargain. She clipped coupons and waited for sales and read the Sunday newspaper looking for specials.
One of my Millennial coworkers recently resigned to move her young family to the green and leafy Chicago suburbs. “I can’t raise my kids here,” she told me. “There’s too much crime.”
It had been a long, exhausting day and as I packed up the meeting room at the Hilton my mind had entered its blank, “the-day-is-over” mode. As I left the hotel I was grateful the weekend’s meeting had been local so I did not have to deal with heading to the airport.
The gardenia bush next to the screened porch was planted when the house was built in 1959. When we bought the house, the gardenia, after years of neglect, was an eyesore, devoid of foliage; we were going to remove it but my mom convinced me not to. “All it needs is some water and fertilizer,”
When I was eight I decided to run away from home and live with my grandmother where, I assumed, life would be simpler. I was undeterred by the fact that I lived in Fort Lauderdale and my grandmother lived in Cleveland. Using the logic I employ to this day, I figured the details would work
I stared out the train window, my apprehension growing with every mile that I ventured deeper into a strange, barren, alien landscape punctuated by the burned out shells of empty buildings and carcasses of abandoned cars . “This may not end well,” I texted my brother.
“I don’t know what to do about Mother,” said Bill absently, as he perused the menu, and I was immediately at a loss. Bill and I have worked together for 20 years and I thought I was up to date on current events in his family but now I wasn’t so sure because, if memory
The autumn scenery in Grand Teton National Park was stunning and it was just chilly enough to offer a welcome relief to a couple of South Floridians worn out by the omnipresent heat and humidity. Since we planned to spend the day exploring the park we stopped at a Subway on the way and bought
