1 Even though I used to find public speaking a nightmare, I consented to be the senior speaker at my Amherst College commencement. I say “consented” because I’d promised Andy, the friend who nominated me, that I would go ahead if elected, as I was.
Memoir
Green-Wood
That Friday afternoon last month, a Green-Wood Cemetery employee named Katie escorted Laura and me as we toured options for our future remains. We walked from buildings to open areas with ponds and vistas, on to another building, and then to yet
A Lost Writer
1 Bonnie and I were close my freshman year of college, her senior year at a neighboring women’s college. She came from a traditional military family and had traveled around the world, not just with her family—in fact, mostly on her own. My feelings
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
Resisting Kafka
1 I’m walking up a busy avenue toward a famous intersection, perhaps Manhattan's Columbus Circle. Pausing at the quiet cross-street just before it, I think maybe I should turn left to avoid being noticed. But that’s paranoia speaking. I press
The Tie That Went to Harvard
The last time I was in the same room with Victor, at a college reunion, we avoided each other. I could hardly blame him. I’d failed to return his calls. But then, he’d stood me up not once, but twice. Victor (all names here are pseudonyms) and I