Someday, we will look back on January 1998 as a time of peace and prosperity, and wonder how we could have been so stupid not to have enjoyed what we had when we had it. Someday we will wonder why on earth, when times were good, we had to wallow in someone else's bad news.
We have already wasted way too much energy, way too many words and brain cells and waking moments, speculating and moralizing about our president's…
Read MoreThe last episode of "Roots" was on television 21 years ago tonight. It was a Sunday, and I watched Part 8 on a small hospital screen, the sound mute. For a whole week, the 12-hour series had riveted me. But it couldn't hold my attention this night, because, just hours before, my daughter Julie had been…
Read MoreI call Joan to see how she's doing and she says she's okay, but there is no joy in her voice, only sadness.
Her best friend died a month ago. Joan was with her when she died. She moved from Connecticut to be with Grace and seldom left her side during the long, slow month…
Read More"Next to God, he is the most important man in the whole world." That's what Kait says. That's why, when her fourth-grade teacher announced the assignment, to go home and read and research, then write a report about the person you most admire, Kait never hesitated.
She chose President Clinton.
Clinton is her hero. She has a picture of him when he was young…
Read MoreBrown towels. They're the metaphor this morning. They say it all. Brown towels are what the Boston Public School system gives to its kids.
At the Mattahunt Elementary School in Mattapan, brown towels are actually soaked in water, put in plastic bags, frozen, placed in a dorm-size refrigerator in the nurse's office and called "ice packs."
Necessity truly is the mother of invention…
Read MoreIt's a simple story of simple goodness that won't make Oprah or headlines because these kinds of things never do. People helping people. One ordinary woman making a difference in the lives of thousands.
Ho hum. Pass the clicker and turn the page.
Read MoreMid-winter. Halfway between here and there. Waiting for the snow to fall. Waiting for the snow to disappear. These are strange days. You find things in your refrigerator, cranberry sauce, a few pieces of ham, left over from Christmas. The poinsettias remain in bloom. Christmas wreaths still bedeck more than a few doors. In corners, and under the carpet, stray pine needles hide.
They're props from a play that closed weeks ago. It was a good play, but that was then and this is now. Now it's time to get serious, time for resolutions, for getting focused. Last year is over. A new year has begun.
Read MoreWhat Grandma would say on this morning after her funeral is, "It's over now. I know you're sad but tears are a waste of energy that don't get you anything but tired. So dry your eyes and go do what you have to do. I had a good life and it's time for you to get on with yours." Something like that…
Read MoreI don't know his name or where he comes from or where he goes when he leaves the hospital. I don't know if he has children, a job, a house, a car, a life that's more than a vigil. I know nothing about him except that he sits in a hospital chair in the afternoons beside a wife who cannot walk or talk or reach out even to touch his hand, a wife who may not even know he is there….
Read MoreIt's a simple story of simple goodness that won't make Oprah or headlines because these kinds of things never do. People helping people. One ordinary woman making a difference in the lives of thousands.
Ho hum. Pass the clicker and turn…
Read MoreDear Bill,
So you went and got yourself a puppy. Oh, I know he is beautiful and loving and adorable and he smells so sweet and his fur is soft and when he looks up at you with those big copper eyes, you know there isn't anything in the world you wouldn't do for him. A ball of fur that sheds and drools and whimpers in the night, and you're totally hooked. Go figure. But, hey, I understand. I've been there, right there, in your shoes.
Read MoreShe slipped them into an envelope and mailed them without a note for no note was necessary. The pictures, photocopies but as clear as the autumn days on which they were taken, arrived brimming with words.
"Mama. Come here! Look at me, Mama…
Read MoreI named her, so I guess it's okay for me to brag a little. She slept in my room when she was born and she lived in my house and I walked her around the block, countless times, pretending she was mine or part mine.
And for a while she was.
Read MoreWe met for lunch Thursday. I hadn't seen her in so many years that I was afraid I might not recognize her. But I did - instantly. There she was waving to me from a table, same blonde hair, same big smile. People don't change. They just become more of who they are.
We were good friends for a while, way back when friendship was easy, when every day was play day. We were pregnant together, due within weeks of each other. We were pregnant for the first time - excited, scared and young.
Read MoreIt's a curious custom, taking things you don't want and no longer need, dragging them to the front lawn, marking them with a price tag, then selling them.
But that's what we do. A dime for a Johnny Tilliston record. It's not high finance. It's trading.
At the end of the day, all you have is a pocketful of change, but it's like when you were a kid and shook coins out of a piggy bank. It's found money. And it's fun.
Read MoreIt wasn't a real vacation, not the kind you write home about. "Dear Family, Today we saw the Eiffel Tower and toured the Louvre and tomorrow we're headed for Versailles. Gotta hurry and get this in the mail because we're off to dinner." No, it wasn't like this at all.
Read More“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a ferris wheel when in pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." - Natalie Babbitt
Read MoreIt takes awhile for me to notice things.
The billboards have been gone for months, but I didn't start missing them until this week.
I looked for them on Route 128, then on the Mass Pike and was suprised when I didn't find any.
Read MoreThe last time I saw them they were two kids, in love, newly married, kissing in front of God and everyone as the boat that dropped them off at Pine Island sped away. The music soared, the lights came on, the film went black and that was it. Johnny and Molly were together.
Fast forward 38 years.
To celebrate the start of a summer season of classic films, American Movie Classics dusted off the 1959 Warner Brothers hit "A Summer Place," and showed…
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