D'ya have to be so rough?

“You have run for your life, Astylos, and won. All Hellenes share in your victory.” The crowd bellowed and thundered as an attendant tied purple ribbons around the winner’s forehead, arms and legs. These would mark him as a victor for the remaining days o

After the funeral there was a luncheon in the church basement.

I was a six year old with no bike. Only the males in my familyhad that privilege. So one morning I got up very early, before the older siblings awoke, crept out the back porch door where Iknew there would be two bikes in the yard just waiting for me and my…

The little Hannibal Lectors had run like bandits away from the flames and had latched on to their equipment and gear. They screamed as the bugs crawled all over them. When they got back to the station they had to quarantine all their stuff so the bugs w

and we got the apartment, which was on a street that backed up on an alley situated, as it turned out, right across the alley from the very first Hari Krishna house, where they would wake up at four every morning and begin their maddening chanting: Hari K

weep or go stark mad your amanuensic fool will bury your words

Emma and I were in a shabby part of town with vacant lots and overgrown yards, and I wondered if something would happen as we loped beside Tom, who was slow-witted and 21. We were 13 . . .

What a hoot men are. For years I tried to get Jim to share the cooking. This is how that worked. One Monday night I'd whipped up a meal of steak, tossed salad, two veggies, and dessert with coffee. The next day was Jim's turn to cook and he came home

So, when Daddy grabbed that cock by the neck and threw him into the hole that he quick covered with dirt, I knew right then that men would play a subservient role in my life going forward.

Sure, to a teacher, life is a paper / but what would life be to a druggist?

Qaddafi's murder brought an old memory I had forgotten about.

I knew her face but not her hair, at least not the right way up.

Just as he expected, the reaction was spontaneous, euphoric and unequivocally positive. With just one exception. A politician connected with the home service of his parliamentary section's boss, with the mobile phone number 0-609-3459812, and known for hi

In another lifetime the loft had been a shoe factory and I joked how in the dark of night I could hear the ghosts of lost soles speaking in tongues. There was the rolling of eyes, and when I repeated the joke to my therapist, who was actually sitting acr