Personal
My personal observations and thoughts.
On the Twentieth Anniversary of My Father’s Death
I’ve thought for weeks about how I would approach this day, what I would write. In the end, I didn’t even know where to start. The simple truth is, my dad has been dead exactly twenty years today. My thoughts…
Thirty Years in Florida
Exactly thirty years ago today, on my 21st birthday, I arrived in Naples, Florida. Around 11 am the 15th of May, 1989, I took my Spanish Literature final at LSU. When everyone was done, our small class walked together to…
Bounty
The moment we bought the land where we would build our house, I started preparing it for a garden. That was March, 1995. Since then, we’ve overcome various pest infestations, minor floods, severe drought, several tropical storms, and a pair…
The Morality of Eating
After reading this article recommended by my brother Adam, we discussed whether all forms of eating are equally moral or immoral. Put another way, why do some consider eating a plant — a living thing — inherently more acceptable than eating…
Monumental Cemetery of Milan
About 25 years ago, I started playing a computer game called “Civilization”, which was released by MicroProse, a company founded in part by a man named Sid Meier. Meier is a historian and musician as well as a computer programmer.…
Surreal
Author's Note: My mother passed away May 6, 2013. I wrote this, and its companion piece, "Bittersweet", in those first months after her death. A few weeks ago, we reviewed the word "bittersweet". Today, we will discuss "surreal". Spending weekends…
Bittersweet
Author's Note: My mother passed away May 6, 2013. I wrote this, and its companion piece, "Surreal", in those first months after her death. We have some excellent words in English: single words that can substitute an entire paragraph of…
Consciousness
At some magic age when he’s not quite a man but no longer a child, he will learn that I was a reluctant fraud. For now, he looks at me with doe-brown eyes so clear and curious and ebullient that…
A Jewish Soldier in WWII
On July 22, 1944, about seven weeks after the beaches of Normandy had been taken in D-Day, the 28th Infantry — the “Iron Division”, as World War One’s General Pershing named it — landed on that same beachhead. The men…
