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I’ve never considered taking one of the DNA analysis tests. I have no idea whatsoever about the makeup of my ancestry; what’s more, I’m content to remain ignorant. I consider it totally irrelevant. I’m not even interested in my own family tree. What little I do know of my lineage fades into the mist around two generations back. There is no old …[MORE] Somewhere around the age of 13, I stumbled across a thin volume of poetry with the inscrutable title Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. I was hooked. The entire collection impressed me so deeply that I never forgot any single verse within. While I held on to my deteriorating paperback copy for decades, it eventually went the way …[MORE] When I was in elementary school, the school offered free piano lessons to interested students. I thought playing the piano would be cool, so I signed up. We met once a week in a small room on the back wing of the school. There were seven spinets crammed into the limited space, and we sat two to a bench …[MORE] As I settle in at the keyboard with the morning’s last cup of coffee, I see that it is Pi Day. I have a long and rocky history with the number pi. My first introduction to it in math class produced an hysterical headache that lasted for days. The whole idea was so…irrational. Dissonance deafened me. …[MORE] Many years ago, I attended a large party with a friend. During the festivities, one of our acquaintances began a very lewd sexual flirtation with another guest right in front of everyone, including the man’s own wife. The wife looked wounded but was bearing up—or was in shock—until she watched her husband take the woman’s …[MORE] There’s an afterword by writer Howard Rodman to one of his own short stories where he speaks to the idea of the arc of the technological change we experience in a lifetime. It’s a topic I’ve given much thought to over the years, and I was a little surprised to see some of my own …[MORE] Sometimes I have a memory, a sensory etching, of a very particular flavor experience that I can not replicate. No matter how many German chocolate cakes I’ve sampled in my life, not one of them was exactly like my grandmother Velma’s. She used actual cake flour and real German chocolate. We hand-picked the pecans for …[MORE] It was an “obstacle” course—one that either earned you your diploma or forced you to change majors. It was offered once each year and taught by only one professor. I signed up. On the first day of class he laid out his plan. We would have regular homework assignments that would be discussed in class; he would give …[MORE] Red Keds. At the age of five, I discovered pride of ownership in a new pair of red Keds. I can still see them in my mind. Our house was being reroofed at the time, and men were up on the housetop pulling up the old shingles and tossing them down into the yard for later cleanup. As …[MORE] I was twelve. Twelve and fat. I stood at the end of the high diving board, frozen with fear. From there, the water seemed twice as far away as it looked from poolside. I had to jump. Losing face was too high a price to pay, so turning back was out of the question. I was in Phoenix, spending …[MORE] |
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