Episode II Unlike so many of the things we must adjust to in life, ageism never gets easier to tolerate. In fact, whenever it seems like it might be flattening out, it amplifies again. Current student attitudes are a good example. I have been teaching for a very long time…

Foreword Now that I’m old, every time I leave my house I become an endangered species. On the sidewalks of my beloved city, young adults on skateboards, little children on scooters, delivery people on bicycles routinely come too close for comfort. …

I don’t, as a rule, like to enter any political discussions in my writespace. Disturbed by the trends toward suppression of ideas and the suspension of critical thinking evident on both the right and left these days, I disagree with just about everyone. It makes sense to remain aloof. Today…

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…