When we’re young, life takes place on two physical levels. There’s the world of adults, shifting like storm clouds close to the ceiling, and the world of children, where kids create games to simulate the behavior of their parents and relatives. I could barely figure out what was happening on my own level, so I […]
December 16, 2012
One year, when I was in junior high school, I read in the local newspaper about a family in the next town. There had been a fire in the middle of the night. A major fire. Trucks and men and hoses had arrived, too late, from all over the county. It was the third week […]
August 17, 2012
My daughter, Allison, is suffering under the delusion that she’s getting married today. This is impossible, of course, because she’s just a little girl. Okay, she’s not really a little girl. She was born in 1985, and if you subtract that number from the year it is now, she’s twenty-seven. So if you want to […]
July 18, 2012
We like to name things. We name our children, of course, so we can tell them apart. That way we know who’s due for a check-up at the dentist and which one kicked the soccer ball through the neighbor’s window. Also, when teachers tell us what a pleasure it is to have them in their […]
February 16, 2012
I’ve recently been reminded that back in my very earliest days, I was both a sperm and an egg. I had forgotten that small detail, but I don’t feel too bad about it, because it’s something most men have difficulty comprehending. We have a hard enough time interpreting road signs that say “No Turn On […]
April 15, 2011
Grown-ups say a lot of things to children. Mostly they make decisions, give orders, and plead for their sanity with statements like, “Not now” and “Put that down!” and “Will you please be quiet? I can’t hear myself think!” Such clear interaction allows the child to grasp the intended meaning quickly and move on to […]
March 14, 2011
I couldn’t wait to grow up. I had things to do, big, important things, and when you’re five years old there are a lot of regulations holding you back. For one thing, there was bedtime, an annoying restriction that did nothing but convince me that the really great stuff all happened after I went to […]
March 3, 2011
When I was four, I was rescued by my older brother during a bizarre incident involving a mechanical bed in our house. Technically, there were two beds. One could be raised to sleeping level or lowered to the floor and rolled under the other, which was stationary. It may be known as a trundle bed, […]
January 27, 2011
The age-old struggle for supremacy between father and daughter is not well understood. Few scholars have dared approach the subject, preferring to wade into less treacherous waters of study, such as the transmission of plague or the destructive results of being hit by lightning. I have not enjoyed the luxury of such gutless timidity. * […]
February 8, 2013
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