December 31, 2017 Baby boomers and movie buffs recognize the iconic line of dialogue delivered in a single word to the befuddled Ben Braddock in The Graduate – Plastics. Putting aside the underlying theme the movie as a statement of the hippie rebellion against everything fake and artificial about middle class life, the character Mr. …
December 7 It was clear that I was missed while during my adventure in Memphis. At one point the six-year-old Laney said that it was ‘unacceptable’ for me to be away so long. Yeah, that one has promise as communicator, a writer or a boss. Four-year-old Chloe worried in August that Mamie would not be …
December 5 In high school I took a journalism workshop at Catholic University in Washington DC. Washington Post writers taught the class so when the charges were dismissed against Daniel Ellsberg for the release of the Pentagon Papers; I was in the center of the action. I wanted to be a journalist. Unfortunately that was …
November 27, 2017 By the time the high school dance ended at 11pm the street was lined with parents picking up their teens. Some upper classmen drove or many walked to the DQ for a burger or ice cream. As a freshman I was often invited to join a group of friends. Fortunately my parents’ …
I never posted this one. I went home for a week in the beginning of October. October 2 Two year old Benjamin’s version of Five Little Monkeys is as incessant as the infamous 100 bottles of beer on the wall. Monkeys repeatedly fall on their head bur the count doesn’t change or it …
October 30 I ran to the upstairs classroom because a student came to the office saying another girl had passed out. The teacher had Cathy laying on on side and was moving the desk away. She was crying and her eyes were open. I knelt down beside her and we tried to get her to …
As the “house guest” of Dr. Cayce Lawrence and his wife Natalie, I’m learning the southern idiom. Natalie has very little southern accent. However, she can slip in and out of several different southern dialects because of her academic background as a linguistic major, to bust her Yankee friend and as she claims that although …
September 5 I’m officially retired today. As a teacher July and August is vacation. Retirement doesn’t start until one doesn’t get up in the dark and put their coffee in a commuter mug. I’m still doing both of those things today in Memphis as the high school counselor. Actually I’m staying late today to help …
September 4 I pass Central Christian Church often. I doesn’t look like a Church. Even modern churches in North Jersey look like churches. Central Christian looks like a small office building. When I passed it last Wednesday there was a sign at the edge of the parking lot. …
September 4 It was a big week at school. There is lots of stuff going on. Student stuff that happened so fast and frequently that one would have thought I was writing a preposterous movie. There was also the stuff that envelopes me in a kind of numbness. It falls under the catergory of …
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