Last Saturday, here in Brooklyn, the wind brought a freshness to an afternoon that otherwise would have been too hot. I felt a vague sense of some yet earlier afternoon, a memory I couldn’t quite place, then or now. It is hidden behind the veils of
In memorium
Prayers for the Reluctant
When someone offers to say a prayer for us, can it be offensive? My religion-skeptic father is seriously ill. One of his friends prayed for him right there in the hospital room, while another said she would do so on her own. Ever unwilling to rock
Grandma: A Reminiscence
The gulf in experience between Grandma Spratt and me is captured in two words from her letter of July 18, 1977: “at Wisconsin.” She lived in the town of Darlington, England. When I was four, my parents, brother and I, who were all born there, moved
Heart and Mind
In 1981, when I was representing criminal defendants on appeal, Vicky, a girl I’d known since childhood, was murdered. Vicky was the youngest daughter in the family that my family was closest to when we lived in Sheffield, England, between 1964