When I was 16, I worked as a counselor at Camp Holiday Trail in Hillsborough Upper Village. The Head Counselor, Ken, and the Waterfront Director, Bob, were both several years older than I. They were smooth New York sophisticates, while I was a naïve Claremont teenager. Ken told us [...]

Today is the last Tuesday of February, and I came perilously close—like 24 hours—to blowing the deadline for this month’s column. These 28-day months can sneak up on you, and the next thing you know you’re checking outside for lions or lambs. But I got a year older recently, [...]

This book review originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of The New Hampshire Jewish Reporter. ------ People Love Dead Jews, by Dara Horn (W.W. Norton & Co., 2021) In the final paragraph of this profound collection of essays, Dara Horn dedicates the book to her four children, with [...]

For over 70 years I have embraced our national pastime, baseball, as my personal pastime. Back in the day, I played second base, but that day ended when I didn’t make the high school baseball team. Since then, I’ve had to content myself with rooting for the Red Sox [...]

A long time ago I developed a left ankle problem. Some sort of tendon issue, but we can fix it, the surgeon said. “No thanks,” I said, and went looking for something simpler and non-invasive. I found it, an “Aircast” brace with that word printed on the strap in [...]

When my sister and I were growing up in Claremont, we shared a bathroom. She is a few years older, and family albums include pictures of her walking me on a leash. I guess she considered me a pet. We were close, and at some point in our teens [...]

Every year on September 11, we pause to remember the day foreign terrorists hijacked four planes, attacked the Word Trade Center with two of them, hit the Pentagon with a third, and were aiming at Washington, D.C. with the fourth when a passenger named Todd Beamer shouted, “Let’s roll.” [...]

The other day a friend of mine called with an idea. He and his wife would like to go on a road trip with the Pianist and me. “Let’s take a walking tour of Claremont,” he said. It seems they have read my reminiscences in these pages about growing [...]

My first camp summer was 1948. My parents drove me from Claremont to Boston, where I got on the train at North Station. I spent the next eight weeks at Camp Arcadia on Salmon Lake in Waterville, Maine. “For there’s freedom there, from worry and care,” went the camp [...]

My father was a member of Elks Lodge No. 0879 on Summer Street in Claremont. The lodge is housed in an old brick building on the corner, with an elk statue on the lawn protecting the building. My father used to play poker there, and I grew up believing [...]