My grandmother had a thick, green strip of grass in her back yard, in front of a yellowing garage that, far as I know, she never used. When the lawn reached its lushest — sometime between June and September — I’d drag one of my brothers out there with a glove and a ball, and… Read More The problem with baseball
The boy is better than halfway through college now, which is, for me, simply stupefying. Not so much because of the “I remember when we were walking him to the bus stop,” thing. Although, if I could remember that, I’m sure that would be part of it. No, Luke has wound his way past the… Read More College educations
In a mental hospital in New York I visited Savannah after her second suicide attempt. I leaned down to kiss her on both cheeks, European style. Then, staring into her exhausted eyes, I asked her the series of questions I always asked whenever we met after a long separation. “What was your family life like,… Read More Writing and re-reading
I was sitting at my desk in the back of the newsroom at the Pacific Daily News, in a 10-story tower in the capital city of Agana that is notable only because it was the only 10-story building in Guam, when the phone rang. It was my brother Charlie. It was one of those calls that,… Read More Of a certain age
When I was in college, one of the many jobs I cycled through (including busboy, dishwasher, flapjack turner and hash browns slinger, assembly line hack at a plant that built transistors, stone shoveler, bathroom scrubber, copy boy, high school sports stringer, telemarketer, and ticket-taker at a movie theater) was working the counter at the just-off-campus… Read More The outlaw life
Every new year, our very Southern neighbors prepare me a dinner plate. They’ve been doing it for years — they’re great next-door neighbors — because, in the South, that’s what neighbors do. And they do it because they know that I love it. They come to their back gate, which opens up on our cul… Read More Black-eyed peas and collard greens
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