PinnedAfter the Boys of Summer Have GoneWhen nothing is at stake, September baseball on the radio offers its own unique comforts.Sep 21, 2024Sep 21, 2024
PinnedThe Unlikely Afterlife of My Father’s Hi-FiIt emerged from the bowels of our garage, bringing a bit of him back with it.Jul 19, 202420Jul 19, 202420
PinnedLost in the Restaurant of the UniverseWhere now contains every moment, and nothing ever arrives in the right order.Nov 5, 20232Nov 5, 20232
PinnedClose, But No Cigar BandThe curious, tobacco-inflected correspondence between my adolescent grandfather and Mark Twain.Apr 5, 2023Apr 5, 2023
PinnedWe Did Not, In Fact, Build This City on Rock and RollAging, death and the lies of 1980s bubblegum music.Jun 30, 202019Jun 30, 202019
Snakes, Nuts and the Perfect Practical JokeWhen the prank is not a prank, it’s the best prank of all. A tiny life lesson.Aug 8, 20241Aug 8, 20241
What Does a Bomb Taste Like?And why do we want so many things we buy to remind us of other things?Jul 5, 2024Jul 5, 2024
The Language(s) of ChristmasAn old ornament emerges from a box with a story in many tongues.Dec 21, 2023Dec 21, 2023
Father ChristmasI already knew there was no Santa. Then something challenged my abiding belief in disbelief.Dec 8, 20235Dec 8, 20235
Card StockThe tiny things we choose to remember can echo forward for decades.Oct 30, 2023Oct 30, 2023
Love, Sugar Beets and a StudebakerHow teaching English to farm workers in rural Michigan brought my parents together.Oct 4, 2023Oct 4, 2023
The Uninvited SweaterToward the end of his life, my father owned many pieces of clothing. This was definitely not one of them.Sep 5, 2023Sep 5, 2023
Saturday Baseball Time MachineA 19th century-style ballgame and an iPhone app combine for a weekend trip back to the Civil War era.Aug 26, 2023Aug 26, 2023
Lookin’ Out My Back DoorFrom the train window, other angles on life slip into focus.Aug 25, 2023Aug 25, 2023
The Stairway to Heaven is ClosedFinding God on the Pennsylvania Turnpike has, apparently, become too much of a safety hazard.Aug 11, 2023Aug 11, 2023
The Second Lives of ThingsDo you believe in reincarnation? When it comes to inanimate objects, I do.Jun 9, 2023Jun 9, 2023
To Oldly Go‘Star Trek: Picard’ concludes by reasserting what gradually became the franchise’s most potent hidden theme: Growing older is something to…Feb 15, 2023Feb 15, 2023
Where the Spirit Might DwellIn undoing the architecture of my late parents’ everyday lives and deciding what to discard, was I committing a small act of violence?Feb 6, 20232Feb 6, 20232