Elena, Then and Now

Olive pit rosaries, crucifixes, statues of Mary and Jesus filled the storefront window and apparently my grandson’s eyes. We had just visited the Pontifical Gregorian University and were headed to the Trevi Fountain when Marco paused to study the religious goods on display. “Sometimes, between classes,” I explained, “I would come here to order a …

The PC Dance

I was in fifth grade in a catholic school taught by Polish nuns in an Italian enclave in Detroit. Ages ago. Before Political Correctness was a thing. My teacher, Sister Anuncia, on what must have been a random impulse decided to ask our thirteen-year old classmate, who had been ‘held-back’ three times, a touchy diversity …

Health by Commercials

When I walk downtown in our city, I pass the Medical School. I guess we need it to produce a steady supply of doctors, to competently handle our ongoing medical issues. But then when I watch television, I see a concerted effort to educate the general public to second-guess doctors. I’m talking about all the …

Downed Powerline

He studied her across the table as she read the menu. He knew what he wanted. His favorite, the spaghetti carbonara. She finally looked up, head canted, her sidelong glance asking, ‘what?’ to his intense stare. He shrugged. What could he say? They had just spent forty minutes at the bar waiting for the table. …

Full Cycle

My granddaughter, Ella, had a friend over. “Let’s play house,” she said. “You be my next-door neighbor and I’ll make us some coffee.” I peeked over the book I was reading and watched her arrange her pink, mini tea set and pour imaginary cups of coffee. Her friend sampled a pretend cookie. “These are so …

Enough To Get Home

Ramiro is my next-door neighbor. He’s Mexican. Came to the States when he was my age. Eighteen. Now he’s eighty-one. Pretty old, but cool. He came with nothing. Now he owns his house and has a dump truck to haul dirt. That was his business. Well, not any more. He’s retired and the truck is …

Ladies in the Locker Room

I go to a sport-themed barber shop these days where all the haircutters are women. Can’t hardly find a lonely-hermit, old-timer still hanging his barber pole outside a run-down storefront. When I was a kid, it was a man’s world, a chance for a guy to read a fishing magazine, maybe josh with a buddy …

A Female Cardinal

I kept hearing a bang and thump from down in my basement. Had someone left a tennis shoe in the dryer. No, it wasn’t that regular. It was intermittent, at irregular intervals and besides I wasn’t drying any clothes. I eased down the stairs and peeked around the door to the utility room. THUMP. WHACK. …

Chop-Chop or Easy Breezy

We were having a window replaced on a second story room. When the installer arrived, I showed him three different routes through the house to get to the room and the porch beyond. To my surprise, twenty minutes later I could hear sawing and banging but hadn’t seen the guy coming through our home. Curious, …

Between Two Pools

They told me not to travel to Tamasopo. Well not exactly, ‘said’. But I could feel it. I was a college-aged, exchange-student, 1961, living in Mexico City as a guest of a wealthy industrialist in Lomas de Chapultepec, a very exclusive enclave. I read my host’s displeasure in tightened eyes and clenched lips as he …