This 75-page compilation brings together excerpts I previously posted individually from the childhood sections of my unpublished memoir, Spiral to Edinburgh. The first excerpt goes back to when I was five or six. The next series relates my boarding
People in my life
The Cougar Within Us
A beloved uncle and aunt, husband-and-wife farmers, named their first cow Rebecca, a lovely, sweet-tempered red and white Ayrshire, and we all fell for her. My uncle and aunt couldn’t bring themselves to have her killed, and so she died of old age.
Jason Kirenden
Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of empires,
Collected Excerpts from my Darien High School Memoir
This 73-page post is a compilation of the nineteen excerpts from my unpublished Darien High School memoir that I posted individually to my website between May and November of 2018. To repeat, almost all names are changed, along with some personal
Remembrance of a Banker
Is it possible to like your banker? If any writer can make finance interesting, it’s Ron Chernow, author of the celebrated Alexander Hamilton (2004). One way he worked his magic in an earlier book on the history of finance was to assign it a title
Identity
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.