I try to impress upon my  writing class, the importance of focus.” You must have a theme, a point of view, a message you want to convey,” I tell them, and for emphasis, I ask that they be able to verbally express, in one or two sentences, the premise of the writing. And so, with […]

OK, I promise — this is my last column of comment on my age.  I’ve got to get beyond  the miracle of having lived ninety years,  and  acknowledge that having  made it this far, I would kinda like to go the distance another ten years while remaining in the shape that I’m in. There is […]

It is the day before the first Seder night, 15 days before my 90th birthday. Even as I am luckily still living my life to the fullest, I am aware of its shrinking future and seem to have catapulted  more than usual (and “usual” has not been without frequency) into deeper and deeper introspective considerations […]

My realtor’s car pulled into the parking space designated #606, and we both emerged from the vehicle, I – staring into the lipstick red bougainvillea tree blooming like an adolescent girl, demarking the end space in  that section of the lot. Immediately, I fell in love with that tree. I didn’t need to see the […]

MY ANNUAL RANT I am a positive person, an optimist, actually. I am not a complainer. If the soup isn’t hot enough, I don’t send it back. I slurp it anyway.  If the gardener allows the branches from my trees to bend over onto the walkway, I take a pair of clippers and prune away. […]