Someone once explained to me the definition of the term professional musician. “It’s someone who gets paid for the gig.” That made sense to me. Ironically, these days getting paid to play is not as important to me as it used to be. I’d say that my first public performance was when I sang “Jingle […]
When I was a boy, if I needed to look something up (“looking something up” is what they used to call “research”), my go-to source was the encyclopedia. Like many middle-class families at the time, mine had an encyclopedia. Ours was the World Book, and each time I opened a volume I was engulfed by […]
There are many ways to divide the world into two parts. Rich and poor. Haves and have-nots. Employed and unemployed. Uneducated and overeducated (I often describe myself as belonging to the latter group). And so many more. Other qualities such as race, gender, and political preference have become more difficult to define, and I […]
“Here’s a copy of my book. I wanted you to have it.” Walter handed me a thick hardback, and I glanced at the title. Medieval Canon Law and The Jews. Above the title were a lot of German words beginning with Abhandlungen. Four years of high school German allowed me to pronounce this gobbledygook, but […]
If the definition of a best friend is someone who knows all of your secrets, then I’d say Ron is still my best friend. He is the keeper of my secrets, and I am the keeper of many of his. We met when we were fourteen-year-old freshmen in high school and were both vulnerable. I […]
When I picture my father, I’m not sure which man is standing in front of me. Is it the dad who taught me how to ride a bike and play baseball, and who stepped up to be Scoutmaster when our troop needed one? Or is it the man dressed in a suit, tie, and topcoat […]
It all started and ended with Miss Potesta. I didn’t realize that everyone in my class did not sign up for English IV in my senior year of high school. Later I found out that only three years of English was necessary to graduate, so a lot of my classmates chose not to enroll […]
Dear Melinda, My dear friend Melodi told me that you write poetry and stories, and asked me to give you some advice about how to get published. This is a perennial question—“getting published.” I’ve had three books published and have strong feelings, attitudes, and opinions about the subject. To begin with, before I “became a […]
Although it wasn’t as quaint as it sounds now, I attended first grade in a four-room schoolhouse building called the Seymour School (we used to call it “the Old School”) in Wantagh, the town in which I grew up. By the time I attended, the building served only first graders, and I’ve spoken to many […]
One day, my college roommate Mike and I passed a pet store in downtown Boston and decided that what our shared dorm room at Boston University’s Myles Standish Hall needed was a hamster. Like many decisions I was making in my late teens, this one was ill-advised. I named the hamster Freud, which was apropos: […]