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![back view of a person walking on a forest path]()
Not my brother’s keeper.
Two weeks ago, my brother made me aware that he had found a homeless encampment under a viaduct where he plans to live. He’s already brought his pet cat there for safekeeping.
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How I became an inadvertent global ambassador for impeachment.
Throughout the developing world, I’ve told the story of Watergate to ramshackle groups of farmers, villagers, garbage dump dwellers, leper colonies, and nomadic tribesmen. It was their happiest story.
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Epithalamium for the Commitment-Phobic
An Epithalamium is a poem written to commemorate a marriage. For my friends who are commitment-phobic, I offer this epithalamium to call your own.
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Normandy and me.
Years back, Ogilvy sent me to France to learn French. It was a total immersion school and I lived in Lisieux, France for four months before joining O&M in NYC. During that time, while in school, I traveled to Normandy on weekend jaunts with classmates. Each and every time, every place I visited (restaurants, hotels, shops, museums), the French people that I met thanked me and acknowledged the sacrifice that…
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Ed Johnson
And then the weird thing happened: The very hip Ed Johnson turned to my octogenarian dad and said, “Hey, you want to grab lunch on Wednesday?”
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The beauty of ordinary things.
It is a big, beautiful world out there and, here in lockdown, I began missing that world big time today. It has been almost three weeks since our state of Illinois issued a stay-at-home order to control the pandemic. Missing the world beyond has led to an interesting conundrum here at home (which is why I still have not done my taxes). “I said to the apple tree, speak to…
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Speak out.
Last night, for no particular reason, Ella began writing poems. This one struck me and so, with Ella’s permission, I would like to share it with you here: speak out. you are not shy. the world needs your words. the world needs your hope and love and peace. speak out. have some courage. words powerful words. speak out. speak out, i say. we love to hear your powerful words in…
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Up
Their voices rise up.
Up through tears and unspeakable grief.
Up to where deafened leaders and the oh-so-status-quo might be able to hear…
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Blah Blah Blah
At 87, my father has little patience with the details of life (not that patience was ever his strong suit).
He doesn’t have the time for trivia. Instead, his conversations over the past months have focused on things like whether or not it hurts to be cremated…
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Don’t take the light lightly.
Ella was three when it began.
Her preschool would call. They’d tell me that she couldn’t lift her head from her desk. She was vomiting. She was ill.
Each time, I’d dash to her school to bring her home…
