In my tucked-in corner of New Jersey, Mr. Massuda the French teacher was an exotic. He was Egyptian, and while to some students’ surprise, he didn’t walk sidewise or write on papyrus, he came trailing a romantic past. Born into…
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Ambitions of a Protestant Saint
At age 9, I decided to be the first Protestant saint, which would catapult me into a new edition of A Child’s History of Heroes and Heroines. I knew this was a stretch. My Sunday school teachers had been quite…
A passion for problems
“The mark of a good scientist is enjoying problems,” my father maintained, “seeking them out.” This problem passion helped him build a distinguished career in chemical research, developing some of the drugs he used himself for cancer and Parkinsons. Unfortunately…
Tagged with: hypothetical problems, Imagination, Iron Curtain, Problem solving
Posted in Childhood fantasy, Cold War, imaginative child
Posted in Childhood fantasy, Cold War, imaginative child
What you can save in Uvita
We are staying near Uvita, on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. This morning I went to a little shop that has a couple samples of almost anything you could want. I noticed too late that the clerk was putting…
At 6, getting Lady Macbeth
When our granddaughter Silvia was six, the local Shakespeare company toured public libraries, having children enact scenes from Macbeth. As much curious how they’d do it as looking for Saturday morning entertainment, I took Silvia. The troupe was clever. With…
Posted in WWWS
Protected: Condolence Soup
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A novel in a picture
The great Robert Capa took this photograph on August 23, 1944, titled “Listening to De Gaulle’s speech after the liberation of the city.” I keep it on my desk. The more you look, the more the image unfolds, could unfold…
Teaching Sex and Drugs in the 60’s
A person could pity school administrators in the late Sixties, trying to hold back short skirts, long hair, drug culture and Vietnam protest with rules and rulers. Rules to keep the crush youth culture in check and rulers to measure…
On glimpsing darkness and light
When our granddaughter Silvia was nearly four, we were stopped in traffic near the local military cemetery, row on row of tombstones. “What are those white things?” she asked. I said they marked where soldiers were buried. “All those are…
When lies make you sputter
In the current super-heated medical-political world you hear lies that make you sputter. How can an apparently thinking person voice such thoughts? Doesn’t this nonsense stick coming out of the throat? Answering with facts just doesn’t matter. All those years…
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