When my brother and I were boys we used to stand up on the hill by Mark Riley’s house and wait for cars to come by so we could bombard them with snowballs. The spot we stood was perfect because we could see the cars from a long way off. We were much higher than […]
Greg Palumbo and me, we were always looking for dirty pictures. Walking down Westlake Drive – that was the main drag in the little town outside of New York where I grew up – we’d scour the bushes and every so often – just often enough to keep us at it – we’d find a […]
When the rain came I decided to show them how to play Monopoly. They were so young, so inexperienced. I almost felt sorry for them. Can you imagine? Timmy (12) and Josh (10) and Delia (8) and Marvin (11) sitting at the same table as me? I played the strategy of the day; all leverage. […]
“Play you three for King,” he said. “I already am King,” I said. “You won’t be for long.” He gave me a long and taunting look. He had adopted the especially dramatic delivery that seven-year-old boys have perfected. “That is, Dad, if you dare …” He had gotten a game called Gangland for his […]
I was 20 maybe. Second-year of college. Home for the summer. I had a half-assed summer job and lots of free time. I was with a girl who I liked. I no longer remember her name. We were in Valley Forge Park. It was a bright summer. We parked down by the old unused train […]
“I am a very good lawyer”, she said. Emmy was nine and riding in the front seat of my car. The seat was sufficiently sensitive to realize that she weighed under 80 pounds and therefore the airbag was off. It was the subject of some debate whether it was safe for Emmy to ride in […]
“This is Jim Fitzgerald,” my voice mail said. “I’m looking for a Joe Doorsky. If you are him, please give me a call. It’s about Kensico Little League.” Kensico Little League? Kensico was where I played baseball as a boy. My family moved away more than 30 years ago. I had never heard of Jim […]
For a brief period – the fall after I graduated from college – I worked for Crow Brothers Construction Co. In those days, Crow Brothers were the dominant septic cleaner in the area. Their bright red pumper trucks were constantly crisscrossing the suburbs, pumping out accumulated sludge and ooze. I got the job because the […]
Delia and I used to play a game called ‟Flying.” I would call her and she would run headlong at me at the full churning tilt her little legs could achieve. When she reached me, I would grab her under her arms and toss her up into the air, converting, it seemed, the horizontal energy […]
My friends and I were 15 that summer and we thought we had outgrown the suburban town where we lived. Center City, that seedy forbidden downtown core of Philadelphia, was as exotic to us as Baghdad. We were pulled there, the pull strong enough to pull a nail from a plank. In Center City, we […]
I moved to San Francisco after a lifetime on the East Coast and hadn’t even finished unpacking before I turned sixty. Everything about my new circumstances was strange. I no longer went to work. I did not know anyone. All the goodwill and stature and community I had built up after a career as a […]
Imagined conversations, daily. Stories on Sunday.
Joan Didion once published an essay called “In Bogota” and years later, in a hotel in Italy, I came upon it and discovered that she had written about Bogota when I was living there. In fact, the hovel of a residencia where I holed up was only a few blocks from her magnificent Hotel Tequendama. […]