For the last few months, I’ve lived 3 miles, instead of 2000 miles, from my sister. The other day I was at her house, just hanging out. She needed to clear leaves off her porch and driveway, so I asked if she wanted help. Loyal readers know that I come from a long line of […]
Family
The Mother, The Anoles, and The Mealy Worms
With apologies to Nancy and Eric Gurney. This is a guest post from my dad. The title of the post is a reference to one of my favorite childhood books, The King, The Mice, and The Cheese (TK, TM, and TC), by Nancy and Eric Gurney. The post is adapted from an email he sent […]
The Crank Index
Son #1 sent me an article about cranks, people who hold strong, contrarian positions. The focus of the article was mathematical cranks, those who insist that they have solutions to mathematical problems known to have no solution. I especially enjoyed The Crank Index in the article, attributed to mathematician Chris Caldwell. Caldwell studies prime numbers, […]
Fall Sabbatical: Home Again, Again
For now, my parents still live in my childhood home, and I think about what it means to “go home again” when I visit there. This month, I am enjoying a different version of going home again. I am on sabbatical for the semester in Somerville, MA, living around the corner from where I lived […]
Stay a Virgin As Long As You Can
When my boys were little, I attended a dinner party at the home of an older colleague. The older colleague is 30 years older than me, a full generation ahead. This man is someone I respect immensely, as much for his warm and accepting way with his family as for his professional accomplishments. Wine was […]
Life Among the Savages
In her memoir of young family life, Life Among the Savages, Shirley Jackson tells the story of the outsize influence of a child’s first grade teacher. We get a delicious profile of her daughter Jannie’s Mrs. Skinner: We had been exposed to Mrs. Skinner from about the third day of school, when Jannie came home […]
Junk Food Firmament
This is a “guest post” from my Exemplary Girlfriend. The story is mildly adapted—and disguised—from an email she sent me a few years ago describing a trip to an amusement park with her two sons. She said I could share. I think you will see why we are friends. Some days I wonder whether my […]
Joe the Curmudgeon
Joe Queenan is a crowd-pleaser at my house. When The Sons are home, and we are lingering after a long breakfast served at 1:00 p.m., Queenan’s Wall Street Journal column is good for a laugh. He’s a curmudgeon, especially about things modern. “Uriah the Hittite” is a family meme: [A] couple of years ago, when […]
Classic Blunders
This post has the potential to insult multiple family members, but here goes. Our older son got my full dose of rage about young love. His first girlfriend lived a 30-minute drive from our house. He was 15, so I logged a lot of driving time with them. One time I was especially ticked with […]
You Can’t Go Home Again
“I know they say you can’t go home again.” That is true figuratively but not literally. I did “go home again” this summer to visit my parents. I slept in my childhood bedroom. I took the photo above, of the birdhouse light switch cover. That little birdie did not fly out of the nest. He […]