Last fall we did not sound the usual call, The words “wait ‘til next year” were not heard at all; A mere five games and a World Series win, We Red Sox fans had no need for chagrin. Good players responded to Cora’s manager tricks; The winter was quiet, [...]

I have a lot in common with Solomon, my nine-year old California grandson, including a love of words. During last month's visit to San Francisco, we did our customary spelling bee, and it was tough to stump him, but I managed with "enthusiasm." Then he noticed that I've been [...]

This month I become old. It’s an odd feeling, since I don’t feel much different. A bit creaky, perhaps, somewhat shorter, and undeniably grayer. But otherwise, just about the same. When I was in high school, we had to write an essay entitled “What is the Best Stage of [...]

Here, with tongue in cheek, are my nineteen “Looking Ahead” predictions for 2019. 1. After the Patriots don’t make it to the Super Bowl, Tom Brady vows to play next season “and beyond.” He doesn’t say what or where, but his wife, super-model Gisele Bundchen, offers to buy Brazil’s [...]

If it had happened to the Red Sox (and it has), I would be in mourning. The Patriots? Not so much. I’m referring to the recent loss to the Miami Dolphins. There they were, five points ahead with a few seconds left in the game. The Dolphins were somewhere [...]

I loved the 2018 Red Sox. With my team leading the World Series against the Dodgers, two games to one, I was looking forward to the fourth and fifth games on Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28. Then, that Saturday morning, a man killed eleven men and women [...]

"O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all.” Robert Frost, October We lived in a cul de sac off West Pleasant Street called “Edgewood,” which consisted of three houses and many acres of land. Our [...]

One time I was taking a plane to Washington for a meeting. We got diverted to Baltimore. Weather, engine trouble, I don’t remember what. The disembodied voice told us we could get off the plane if we wanted but we’d be back in the air soon. I believed the [...]

When I wrote in a recent column that I didn't know my fathers' parents, that wasn't quite true. I did know my grandmother Bertha Steinfield, at least a little.  he was bedridden at her sister Nellie's house in Revere, Massachusetts. My father took me there to see her when [...]

If you think golf is a country club sport for rich white men, you didn’t grow up in Claremont in the 1950s. It’s true that the golf course was at the “Claremont Country Club,” and that some of the town’s wealthier citizens were members. But golf in Claremont was [...]