There is a lot to be said for improvisation. The inspired moment, the unexpected twist, the providential accident; they’ve all made significant contributions to to human evolution generally and human careers specifically. 80-year-old Sanford, North Caroline resident Jeanne A Undy’s career in education owes much of its success and remarkable longevity to unscheduled departures […]
A soft whimper coats the corner wall of a cell in the Leavenworth federal prison, seeking a way out. The dying tone of a howl of despair, there is no strength in it, no imperative sound that would last more than a moment in the outside corridor. It is cornered, subdued, and rendered practically inaudible […]
I don’t know how the wisdom accumulated in that man, the short, wiry Irishman with the minor lisp and the fingertips always snapping gently at the points we dared to make out loud in his classroom. He would hear them and look up into a firmament pierced with hanging lights, and his face would shine […]
On the medal stand, having been escorted up by event dignitaries and uniformed men, they look like any other group of winter X-gamers basking in the fame that found them at the finish line. Tall, short, skinny, beefy, tattooed, pierced, stringy-haired, bald, smiling, tight-lipped, waving, or simply standing at exhausted […]
The public has spoken, and will likely go on speaking until all the aluminum bats that they don’t use in the major leagues have returned to molecular form. Opinions on the question of whether Barry Bonds cheated, and how much or how little it devalues the new MLB career home run record, are zinging this […]
Supply will always trail demand for anything of human value in this world. That maxim is magnified a hundredfold when we’re talking about experiences, goods, and services that involve personal pleasure or the attainment of status. The market forces brought to bear on, say, a pair of 50-yard-line Super Bowl tickets, or seats that come […]
Neighbors drove by on a perfect Saturday morning,
sealed up and eyes front.
It was very odd to me that they could motor past our sloping lawn
and not see the river of your life flowing
way down deep in its glorious chasm, just beyond the mailbox
and between the birches.
I sat with you and stroked your brittle coat
while it […]
At first glance we doubted that the four of us and our vacation cache could ever fit into a Volkswagen beetle; the freebooting, hanging-on-a-rail days of wild youth were too far behind us. But with sweat bunching up our imported socks we loaded it tight, popped the clutch, and waved so long to the attendant […]
She stood on the corner of Wilshire and La Cienega, facing north, placidly holding a sign. For several weeks she took up this post on Friday afternoon, baring her soul to the dense traffic growling to move at the light. Each week she hoisted a new sign, and stayed until darkness made her quit. The […]