Memoir

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 […]

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 […]

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) […]

  “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 […]

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 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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]