We were the underdogs. Eleven years old and younger, with oversized gloves and a still-to-be-developed relationship between a baseball and a bat. All knew the stakes. Win and move on, lose and go home. Would the parents feel it more than their kids?   In the first inning the visitors (us) scored twice and […]

   He can smash a drive 300 plus yards; more significantly, he’ll hit it straight down the middle of the fairway. He hits greens in regulation, chips and putts well. He has recently begun breaking 70 for 18 holes on a championship-length course. Oh, and he’s only 15. And, of course, I hate him. “Those who […]

   I’ll admit it right up front: I’m flummoxed by Christmas, especially the gifting part. I have three granddaughters, and I swear there are times when I think I can buy each of them a box of cigars and they’d all be happy. The oldest is 11, yet I imagine the three of us lighting up […]

Hanukkah celebrates a miracle. When the Maccabees defeated their Syrian overlords and reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem 200 years before the birth of Christ, the victors lit a lamp they thought had only enough oil to light for a day. Well, it burned for eight and both a miracle and tradition were born. Figure the […]

   As I’ve already suggested, Carol’s family is close – intimate really. So when her daughter April called one morning asking, “Can you come over and smell my son’s wash,” even that didn’t strike me as inordinately “close” for this brood. I thought, sure, there are no skeletons in this family’s closet that have to be […]

   Then there are the family Thanksgivings that don’t even try to be special. They just naturally are. The Madigans Thanksgiving is in that category.    All I ever wanted from my own family’s Thanksgiving traditions was a TV tray table, a football game and getting through dinner without anyone hurling a combination of threats or fists […]

    Probably sixty years after I first read it, I can still recite the opening line to Babe Ruth’s autobiography: “I was a bad kid; I say that without pride…”    Growing up in the 1950s, baseball was THE professional sport, even in a non-professional sports region like New Orleans. (The New Orleans Pelicans were a AA […]

   I was 16 when Hurricane Betsy hung a U-ee in the Atlantic, wrapped itself around Florida and made a beeline for the Louisiana coast. It was September of 1965, and New Orleans was the bullseye of the storm.    The night of the storm, my father made me a highball to “calm my nerves.” My nerves […]

July 14th Bastille Day    The heat wave had taken full hold in France by now, plus we’d seen and done most that there was to see and do in Tours. So my suggestion that we just hang out in the apartment until the National Day activities would get underway at 6:00 p.m. that evening was […]

    I was five years old when the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation  illegal. I was 15 when the Civil Rights Act guaranteed the rights of citizenship regardless of race, color or creed, and 16 when the Voting Rights Act could not restrict the right to vote regardless as well. I was 24 when the […]