My big goal from the time I was a kid was to go to college, get a degree and then a good job. Mom often told me, starting in my elementary school days, that to go to college, I would need to save my money. … Read More »Living on Malted Milk Balls
I lost a close friend of the four-legged type two weeks ago. It was Jerry, who was nineteen and a half years old – a very senior cat. Nevertheless, it was difficult for me to say good-bye to him. He came into our lives in… Read More »My Buddy Jerry
Before embarking on a career in librarianship, I spent several years working in retail. That provided an opportunity to serve customers of every type. Since I like people, I enjoyed – for the most part – assisting folks of all stripes to get what they… Read More »Customers I Have Known
There was a period of several months when we would find evidence of mice in our house and once even saw one scurrying across the floor in the kitchen. Our home is in the DC suburbs of Maryland, and the creatures were apparently making their… Read More »Freedom for The Mouse
For decades, I harbored a resentment against my parents, both of whom are now gone, and an emotion close to shame or diminished self-worth. It concerns the circumstances under which I was created and what my mom and dad never told me. The ironic part… Read More »Here by Chance
World War II ended in 1945 – ten years before I came into being. By the time I started learning about the war and its carnage, it was two decades since it had happened. To me, it all seemed like it was far in the… Read More »An Echo of Horror in Northeast Philly
My father was born in 1914 and grew up in a crowded Italian American row home neighborhood in South Philadelphia. This area of immigrants and first-generation Americans was fertile territory for those who operated outside the law. His own father, Sebastiano, who had emigrated from… Read More »The Anti-Role Model
Back before the rise of the Internet and the complete submergence of society in computers, tablets and cell phones, there was a quaint information discovery mechanism called the library’s card catalog. The bigger the library, the bigger its card catalog’s listing of books and other… Read More »Do and Don’t Do
My high school and college days working weekends and summers at Dave’s Deli in Northeast Philly resulted in a broad education in business, management, customer service and human relations. Beyond that, it provided a source of funding for my formal undergraduate studies, as described here. … Read More »I’ll Take Care of You When You Get Married
Dad was born in 1914, and my mom arrived in 1920. As such, some of their formative years were spent in the midst of the great depression. It left a mark on each of them. They were very conservative with spending the money that came… Read More »My Chevy Biscayne