The new gym rat in the family has been nagging me. He starts even before I open my eyes. "Power Pump is today. You really should go," he says at 5 a.m. The clock radio has just clicked on. The announcer's voice is a whisper because the radio takes time to warm up. Mr. Stretch and Bend doesn't have this problem. I said I'd go to the gym in the spring. Spring has arrived. He has deemed it his duty to get me there…
Read More"Fred said the world has changed since I left it. Is it true?" Sal asks. Sal has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's Disease. For six years his world has been a hospital room. Every day people bring in news of the world. Every day television supplies images and radio fills in…
Read MoreThe warnings are posted on every piece of gym equipment, at the bottom of a long list of carefully written instructions. They are in clear, dark print and are easy to read: "Attention users: Failure to comply could result in serious injury or even death." Nothing new here. We live in a world full of warnings…
Read MoreAnne used to live on my street, a quarter of a mile away. A million years ago when our children were small we hung out together, at her house in the winter and at my house in the summer. Lauren and Amy were best friends. They were 8 and 9 then, bright, fanciful little girls who were always doing cartwheels and singing and playing dress up and creating dramas that they insisted we watch…
Read MoreHe didn't know me from Adam. We'd just met, talked a little, exchanged the usual pleasantries. He used to write sports for the Herald, he said. He was originally from Somerville. He was married for 43 years. He was man of a certain age. We left the university together because we were both going home instead of staying for a dinner. He was taking the T back to Melrose. I was hailing a cab back to the paper…
Read MoreWhat makes a child kill? We look for the big reasons: divorce, drugs, a history of being abused, a loaded gun, revenge, despair. But what if there is no big reason? What if it's a thousand little ones?
Read MoreA day late and a dollar short. That about sums up this worst storm in 50 years. Monster winds. Record snowfall. Two weather systems converging and stalling. There hasn't been this much hype since the release of "Heaven's Gate," another zealously over advertised bomb. Winter's wrath? Storm of the century? Right. We've been here before how many times?
Read MoreI am trying to look at the bright side of things. Count my blessings. Give thanks for the moment and not wish the moment away. The bright side: This isn't the Yukon. The ice on the front walk has finally melted, making both the mailman and me happy. The days are getting longer, never mind that they're cold and gray and cheerless. And we are on the right side of the year. This is not, thank God, November…
Read MoreMy sixth-grade teacher, Mr. O'Neil, explained the derivation of the word "salary" way back in 1957, when I didn't make a salary and didn't much care about the salaries of anyone else. He said, out of the blue, the way he said a lot of things, that in Roman times salt was scarce and of such value that Roman soldiers were paid with it. "It was called 'salarium,"' he said. "Salarium became salary."…
Read MoreTom Lehmann, 48, was buried last Friday after a three-year battle with cancer. It was a fierce battle. When he was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread from his colon to his liver. A succession of experimental therapies bought him time, but at a big price. The treatments slowed the disease, but slowed him down, too...
Read MoreIt's a story in an old book, not even a story, just a thought for the day kind of thing, written half a century ago, but oh so appropriate for today. "A Needed Reminder" is the title and this is the tale: After the fall of Rome, when conquering generals returned to the city to celebrate their triumph, a slave was assigned to each of them. The sole function of this slave was to crouch in the victorious warrior's chariot and constantly remind the conqueror that the greatest human glory passes quickly…
Read More"Hey? What happened around here?" my father said, walking into my kitchen the other day. He looked in the family room, the dining room, the living room. "Your house is so clean. How come?" A person might think this, but how many would dare say it? Only a parent…
Read MoreAt 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, two women, one in her 80s, the other half her age, climbed into a maroon Dodge Ram, bowed their heads, asked for God's blessing, then headed over to New England Produce in Chelsea to beg for food. It was a raw, cold morning, and icy underfoot, the mammoth dry dock where vendors sell fruits and vegetables to grocers throughout New England, crowded with men, crates, fork lifts and oversized trucks…
Read MoreThere are no feelings of doom and gloom in the sprawling ranch in Walpole where Debbie and Mark Bernabei live with their two sons, Nicky and Brett. No "Woe is me," or "Why us?" There is instead the sound of Brett's laughter, cartoons on TV, rays of sunlight pouring in from huge windows, photographs of the boys at different ages on the walls and on the bookshelves and flowers, or the feel of them, in every room…
Read MoreNestor "Tito" Herrera should be outside playing in the snow today, trudging through it on his way to school, making snowballs, laughing with friends, his cheeks rosy, his smile bright, his tiny corner of the world a fine place for an 11-year-old boy to be. Instead Tito Herrera is dead, his small body in a coffin on its way back to Puerto Rico, stabbed by another 11-year-old at a movie theater Saturday after a matinee…
Read MoreYou wonder exactly what combination of words is used to get a woman to agree to give birth on national television. Something like: "We'll stick with soft lighting. We'll shoot you from your best side," or: "No, no, no, you are definitely not fat and swollen. You have never looked lovelier." Could it be a rush of hormones that overloads the natural circuitry of the brain, that makes a woman actually nod and smile and say: "Sure! Why not film the birth?
Read MoreColumnists write stories, sometimes their own, sometimes someone else's. A story may inform, persuade or entertain. It's that simple. Columnists have a point of view, which they are obligated to pass on to the reader. Reporters, on the other hand, are obligated to stick to the facts, who, what, where, when, why. News stories are supposed to be unbiased.
Read MoreThe pretty young woman hobbling out of her apartment, struggling with her crutches and the heavy glass door, put it all in perspective. She was tall, thin and fair with curly brown hair, long legs and her two feet in blue cushioned toeless things that people wear after surgery. She was having a hard time walking, the crutches and the feet things new, the sidewalk slick, the morning cold. I assumed she was a dancer and that tight toe shoes and high-heeled tap shoes were the reason behind whatever had happened to her feet.
Read MoreWhen my son was small and it was winter, we would go for walks in the woods. And he would stretch his legs and take giant steps to walk in my footsteps, the imprint of his boot always swallowed up by mine. It was the same thing with snow angels. I'd make one and he'd make one and there they'd be, side by side. But then he'd…
Read MoreThey are called "audio systems" now, micro component systems or mini component systems or full-size systems with separate components. Micro is small. Mini is bigger. Full size is the biggest. Boom boxes, portable things that people take to the beach, are neither micro nor mini, (though they're smaller than both) and are sold in a separate department, next to water-resistant sports Walkmen and clock radios. All I wanted was a small stereo for a friend who's in a hospital. Something with an off-on button, a tape deck and a three-disc CD player. Something that a nurse or a nurse's aide wouldn't have to call maintenance to use. On. Off. AM. FM. Simple? Hardly.
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