In 1968, when I was 11 and my brother was 16, he snuck out of the hotel room where my family was staying in Las Vegas to play blackjack in the casino. My family was touring the southwest and west in a U-Haul truck that had been converted into a camper van, which meant we

“Break on through to the other side,” the Doors’ hit song from 1967, was an important part of the soundtrack of my last semester in college, in the spring of 1980. Today, as I ponder the fact as of Monday I finally will be eligible to be vaccinated, the idea of getting to “the other

“If only my uncle, the general, was here.” Those were the magic words that allowed my parents to get married in Baltimore on August 1, 1944. And they were the words my mother loved to repeat when she told the story, which she did so frequently that her grandkids could (and would) mouth the words

Six years ago today, I got on an airplane in Boston to head to Los Angeles. Later that day, the National Weather Service officially reported that the winter 2014-2015 was the snowiest year since we started keeping track of such things. We had, at that point received 108.6 inches, breaking a record set in 1994-1995

For me, and many other people, today is the one-year anniversary of when I not only started working from home but also began to actively avoid as many face-to-face interactions as possible. Reflecting on this anniversary this evening, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve needed to get through the year. That, in turn, made me

As the great gospel song says, I “woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” I didn’t realize that was the case until late in the day but looking back at the day, it’s clear it was there all day long. Freedom was a clear theme when, over my morning coffee, I read

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost,” is one of many lines that Dante Alighieri wrote in the 14th century that seem totally appropriate for March 2021. It’s appropriate for me today, because I spent the day on Zoom doing

Before there were Google Maps, before there was MapQuest, there was something my daughters called “GrannieQuest.” GrannieQuest was a remarkable, personalized navigation service. If you were driving somewhere, you would call my mother and ask for directions. You would quickly get accurate, detailed directions (told from memory) even if it had been years since my