Always Define Your Terms

Always Define Your TermsI’m sure that anyone out there who has studied Algebra is familiar with the maddening nature of word problems. You know the ones: “The PTA Bake Sale raised a total of $177.50. Cookies were sold for 50 cents each and frosted cupcakes were $1.50 each. If the combined total of cookies and … Continue reading →

Forgive Us Our Sins

Back in 1995, actors Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt starred together in the crime thriller, Se7en, about a serial killer whose crimes fashioned to represent the seven deadly sins: sloth, gluttony, lust, wrath, envy, greed, and pride. The order of the sins is important; they traditionally begin with sloth, which is considered as the least … Continue reading →

Things That Make You Go “Hmmm”

As I write this essay in February 2025, I am shocked to discover that the year 1991 is now thirty-four years in the past! How is that even possible? Now, you might be wondering why it is that I’m thinking specifically about the year 1991. As a Gen-Xer, I was a young working mother in … Continue reading →

Please Don’t Revoke My Black Card

For those who are not aware of the intricacies of African American culture, you might be confused when you hear Black Americans talking about “revoking someone’s black card.” The “black card” is not to be confused with the “race card,” but instead represents a set of behaviors that are (often stereotypically) that can cement a … Continue reading →

Do All Lives Really Matter?

For all of Facebook’s virtues and vices, there is one aspect of it which those of us of a certain age probably marvel at more than most. It provides a way to peek into the lives of friends and acquaintances from high school in a way that we otherwise would be unable to do. It … Continue reading →

A Kinder Gentler Place

The nation said goodbye to former President Jimmy Carter last week, and as all of the living former Presidents and many of the former Vice-Presidents gathered to pay their respects it was impossible, for those of us old enough to have lived through each of their administrations to make comparisons among them. I was only … Continue reading →

Too Much of a Gentleman

Here I am in 1976. I was 13 years old and in the eighth grade. From ages 9 to 12 I had been somewhat vaguely aware of the Watergate scandal, not because it was interesting (the long summer of the Watergate hearings made for very boring television), but because, from the adults all around me, … Continue reading →

I Feel Like a Plain-Bellied Sneetch

While there are many reasons throughout my life for my feeling like the proverbial “fish out of water” one of the more interesting is the fact that I was born on the cusp of two wildly disparate generational cohorts. While I am technically a Baby Boomer, I only qualify by mere months. As a result, … Continue reading →