The Dangerous Mouth Game My father was eleven years old when he was summoned to his father’s bedside. “Remember this, my son,” the old man said. “Respect your mouth. Teeth can kill you.” Grandfather knew whereof he spoke. He promptly died. . . felled by a cluster of abscessed teeth…

Pandemic Ponderings — Collateral Damage Covid-19 has been kind to me so far. I suffered a bit from the usual wishing to be out in the world with friends, the ordinary desire to be back in the routines, to return to exploring the city I love. Still, no one close to me died, was displaced…

Every night from March through July, as the pandemic raged beneath my seventh floor Harlem apartment, I fantasized returning to Saranac Lake. To block out the incessant wail of the sirens on Amsterdam Avenue, I covered my ears with headphones and watched YouTube videos featuring scenes of Adirondack serenity and…

July 29, 2020 Were he alive today, my father would be turning a hundred nine. He has been dead thirty-seven years. I have been fatherless for more than half my life. It’s hard not to think of him today. On the day he died, he was exactly the same age…

Hot Time Summer in the City New York City is under siege. Every day from late afternoon overnight until early light of morning, fireworks perseverate. There is a ruckus on the street that blankets my apartment in a surround-sound track reminiscent of a badly-balanced war film’s. …

Memorial Day Musing Insomnia plagued my childhood. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Europe, who never spoke outright about what had happened back there. Eavesdropping on the muffled conversations she had in clandestine German with her sisters and parents, however, I felt the anguish wrought by the dismal truths…

These days, my oldest grandchild, age 11, often telephones me from her home in Westchester. We have not seen each other since mid-March, and we are not used to so extended a separation. We normally spend at least a weekend a month together. So, she calls to tell me about…

Bad news from the Bronx today. The virus has killed my student’s mother. He’s only seventeen. She must have been young. Horrifying the alacrity with which his world is disemboweled. No preparation, no goodbyes, no final words of wisdom or instruction. Just here today hi-mom-i’m-home, gone tomorrow, empty house. COVID-19…