My wife Barbara and I recently made our first trip to Montréal – six nights, what a treat! In planning for this vacation, I never once gave a thought to music, let alone early Seventies Top Forty hits. Yet, an encounter with a local about… Read More »Learning about American Music from a French Canadian in Montréal
My mom, Ethel, was born in 1920 and raised in a 3-story North Philly row home that was inhabited by various members of her extended German-American family. As a young adult, she met my father when he threw a snowball at her. (And no, he… Read More »Mom Loved the Mummers
Right out of college, I worked at an oversized, four-story B. Dalton Bookseller in Center City Philadelphia – the largest bookstore in the city, situated in a repurposed old time bank building. That’s where I was mistaken for Sylvester Stallone! Despite a long commute to… Read More »You Don’t Want Me to Wrap Your Gift
Back in the 60s in Philly, we had limited television viewing choices – ABC, CBS, NBC and public broadcasting on channel 12, with UHF stations just being launched. I loved TV and thus watched a lot of shows that were not of the highest quality,… Read More »Wisdom from a ’63 LeSabre
Over the years, I have had nearly thirty different supervisors. As I shared in a previous post, they had varying impacts on my life and career. Luckily, my very first supervisor, Danny, displayed to me many of the characteristics that go into being a successful… Read More »What Makes a Great Supervisor
1983 was a big year for me. I completed my graduate work in library and information science, was selected for an internship at the Library of Congress, and with Barbara moved to the suburbs of Washington. 1983 was also a big year for Tom Cruise.… Read More »Splinters
1972/1973 was my senior year of high school, during which time I became a big fan of David Bowie. At that time, he was in his Ziggy Stardust phase, with spiky orange hair and an androgynous appearance. The one turntable in my home was part… Read More »Lou Reed Took My Money (and I Got Unlistenable Crap in Exchange)
Andy and Barney were cats from the same litter – brothers whom we named after the sheriff and deputy from Mayberry. They were born together, nursed together, then adopted together to our home. They did just about everything as a pair and appeared to like… Read More »An Unfortunate Series of Events Involving Two Hungry Cats, Their Food, a Fill-In Cat Watcher and a Kitchen Appliance
Danny was my first supervisor and the biggest influence on me as I became a manager myself. I have already written a few times about him, starting with my first day as his employee. Although Danny taught me a whole lot about how to run… Read More »Not What It Looks Like
During my first few weeks working at the world’s largest library, I was witness to a situation in which a middle-level manager tried to pull the wool over the eyes of an executive-level manager. It was apparently successful and taught me that a manager –… Read More »Fooling the Boss