Boy is it hard to find a silver lining, but the novel coronavirus has had one unintended consequence that dared to fill my heart. Both my college sons got blown off course and ended up back at home –– my home! –– which means I have been cooking for more than one, for nearly the
If the road is in your soul, is it possible to pass it down through your DNA? Perhaps that’s a question best left to the nature versus nurture debate, because I’ve raised my boys on a steady diet of beef jerky, chips and thousand-mile drives, and they are still coming along for the ride. I
My apartment is really small. It’s four floors up. It has been known to house unexpected wildlife. The rent is more than most people’s mortgage. And still, my boys come home. Young Matthew was first back to the city this year, down from UVM while his brother was toiling with finals at Ithaca. Matty’s only
My son was a lousy batter. There. I said it. The kid was sports-addled from the age of 3 when he was a pumpkin head on a chubby body swatting wiffle balls with a fat red bat. In the heyday of his Little League years he was a great team leader and solid fielder, but
My stepdaughter left Philly under a cloak of darkness. A year + change of her college experience had rendered her lost and confused. Is that why grown-ups are going to prison on behalf of their kids? Have we lost sight of what education is really all about? My siblings and the lion’s share of my
My boys are gone! Shipped off to Ithaca and University of Vermont, leaving me alone in my Brooklyn apartment on a late-August night, with my thoughts, a whisky and a plate of steak tartare. I dropped Ben yesterday for his senior year – a fact that I am yet to fathom. He was a camp
These days when we talk about bravery, it often involves a mass shooting and first responders. The hero who flung himself on a gunman in a North Carolina classroom last week saved lives. I asked myself, would I have had the courage to do that? In the same newscycle, a young man named Matthew Easton
Just over 21 years ago, in an extraordinary flash of reproductive coincidence, my best friend and I bore witness to our respective wives giving birth to two children, 200 miles and a mere few hours apart. I realize this sounds a little like the beginning of a very cheesy (or brilliant!) novel, but in fact
Ohio State. Cornell. Tufts. SUNY New Paltz. RISD. U. of Michigan. Penn State. R.I.T. Madison. Maryland. SUNY Albany. Champaign. Tulane. Burlington, VT. Dartmouth. Temple. UIC. USC. New England Conservatory of Music. From Boston to L.A., upstate New York to New Orleans, our four kids considered enough colleges to keep us on the road for four
I’m not sure how people “make it” in the arts. I’ve been an artist all my life, not to mention a musician, carpenter, stair-builder, laborer, landscaper, cab driver, security guard, short order cook, waiter, bus boy, dishwasher, and parent to two teenagers. Pretty much everything I know in life I’ve picked up by trial and
