Parents Night Emma used to do real good in school her mother tells her new teacher. It’s Parents Night at Ryland Elementary. Mostly mothers in attendance. What’s the problem, her mother asks. Fifth grade shouldn’t be hard for her. Emma’s never had a grade lower than a B, her mother says. Teacher says Emma doesn’t do her homework and talks a lot in class. Her mother can’t believe it. Says her […]
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Everybody Don’t Have Somebody The man in the ER, sutured and bandaged, told the nurse there wasn’t anyone she could call to give him a lift home. He said he’d take a bus once he had a chance to check his wallet and see if he had any money. He didn’t have much to begin with, he said, and the […]
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Answering Machine My wife’s upset because I won’t answer the phone in the middle of the night even though the phone’s on my side of the bed. And I say that’s because after all these years we both know whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night, someone we know, maybe someone we love, has […]
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In 1920 he came on a boat from Ireland and found his way through Ellis Island. He found a room in a boarding house catering to his kind and went looking for a job but found instead signs in windows saying “No Irish Need Apply.” A cemetery asked him to dig graves and lower the dead. In America today […]
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A Husband Falters Better take his wife to lunch after what he said yesterday. A slip of the tongue. But where to take her? The Chinese buffet? The Indian buffet? Maybe the Japanese place. She likes sushi and tempura. But when he asks about lunch she says not a chance. She has to clean the house. Cleaning lady comes today.
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Every summer they come, a ballet over the border, without papers, a mass migration of ruby-throat hummers, beautiful birds that devour millions of flies in North America, birds we welcome because we love their beauty and their ballet. We do everything to help them, hanging and cleaning feeders of nectar to plump them up so they can feast on flies until October when they have […]
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Age Has Curtains An incident in youth never meant to happen recorded on a pad to be read another time is found decades later in a drawer of socks by the writer who is then on the precipice of age. His reading glasses help him understand who it was and why he did it. Not so funny now. Can’t apologize. He’s […]
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Bunny Day Christmas is now the Holidays. But Hanukkah is still Hanukkah and Ramadan is still Ramadan. Easter still has its name. The media needs more time to make the change.
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A Good Customer I saw Al once a month for 30 years, maybe more, doing business together. He retired to hunt bear in Alaska, hook Tarpon in Florida, golf in Scotland. He had it all planned. Nothing would stop him. Months later I learned doctors said he had cancer of the blood. The outlook was bleak. I called Al and he said six months, […]
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Plain Girl Pretty Rose was a plain girl from a small town. She sang in the choir, never missed Bible study, left for the big city after high school. She worked nights in a shanty diner next to a bar where working men gathered. Depending on how much the men had to drink Rose looked appealing but she ignored […]
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