Late for Your Life

One of the most memorable days of my brief tenure as a social-studies teacher started when one of my kids raised a hand in the middle of a lesson on the Populist Movement and asked, “Why do we have to learn this?” As a believer in the concept of the teachable moment (and with some [...]

Thirty Days Hath September . . .

. . .  and I needed nearly all of them to coax autumn into my life. It finally came in on Monday, a windy, gray, chilly day, as I ran errands to the sound of Van Morrison’s Back on Top. It really is the best autumn album of all, and I should have known it [...]

The Ones After 909

Can you remember the first time you heard a CD? In my case, it was sometime in 1987. One of the guys from the radio station bought a player and invited a couple of us over to hear it. He chose a disc by the Tonight Show Band, stood us in front of the speakers, [...]

The Year That Was (Part IV)

(Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series are here and here and here.)

When I found my 1976 daybook again recently, I hoped it would be the Rosetta Stone that unlocked the mysteries of 1976, including the Big Why: why a part of me continues to live in that year despite all the other years [...]

The Year That Was (Part III)

In 1976, I kept a daybook, recording various bits of trivia along the trip through the year I turned 16. When I found it recently, I hoped it would help me figure out just why that year, more than any other year of my growing up, is the one I’ve never moved completely beyond. Parts [...]

The Year That Was (Part II)

In 1976, I kept a daybook, recording various bits of trivia during the year I turned 16. When I found it recently, I hoped it would help me figure out just why that year is the one I’ve never moved completely beyond. Part 1 of the excavation is here.
The majority of the notes in the [...]