Featured Stories
When I bought Frankie on a whim from an overweight couple in the backwoods of East Texas, I hadn’t fully thought through the life-changing decision I was making. I was home for a long weekend after three months in New York, and had no prior intention of getting a dog. I wasn’t a “dog person.” Or a cat person, for that matter. I liked puppies and kittens, in that order, but didn’t like full-grown pets a lick.
Maybe it’s because we had a constant string of dogs growing up—they came in and out of our lives as often as new pairs of shoes. Some we got as adorable puppies, some as scraggly strays; the one thing they all had in common was that they didn’t last … Read more »
Late in February, Testwell Laboratories was convicted in New York State Supreme Court of falsifying the test results of concrete used in projects including the new Yankee Stadium, Freedom Tower and the Second Avenue subway. The news transported me to the summer of 1971, when, as an employee of Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, I was responsible for the integrity of the concrete in major construction projects around Manhattan.
Let me state some pertinent facts. First, I was seventeen years old at the time. Second, I knew nothing then about concrete. (What I know now is the fruit of my study of Wikipedia and other sources). It was the summer before my freshman year of college and … Read more »
OBEYING THE ALPHA (PART II)
In the middle of our intensive training, I decided to take a full-time job. While I enjoyed the independence of freelancing, I needed the security of having a steady income to pay for the lifestyle to which Frankie and I had grown accustomed. When I left for work each day Frankie would be confined to the kitchen, since she was only half way potty-trained and so she wouldn’t destroy anything.
The first week at work was tough. I was part of a small design firm with just five people situated in the ground floor an apartment in Greenwich Village, owned by Mrs. Rebecca Rosenstein. The work seemed quite creative and we had access to the back garden to eat lunch. I … Read more »
The skin on Dad’s hands was dry, cracked, and marked with scars from years of physical labor while working in a machine shop. When he wasn’t at work with a wrench, he spent his weekends hammering and building the handy man special we fondly called home. Helping him on this solemn morning, and watching his hands, I was flooded with memories of my Dad and childhood.
“Hold still for a second, I almost have it,” I said. Dad dropped his hands to his sides. I slipped the knot closer, making it a little snugger, just the way he liked it. “Perfect, Dad.” Normally, he would have felt the tie to make sure it was as it should be. Instead, he said nothing, glancing nervously around … Read more »
It was my first birthday party - I was super excited, okay? So I'd like to preface this story with the statement that really, I'm a good person at heart. I really am! I'm a really good person - who just likes birthday parties. A lot.
As I said, it was the first birthday party that I had ever been invited to, and even back then, I recognized a good party when I saw it. The birthday girl's mom had clearly worked hard on this party - the decorations were stellar, the presents were beautifully wrapped, the cake looked delicious, and the mom had even gone so far as to make a special hat for the birthday girl.
I wanted that hat.
My love for hats has persisted … Read more »
I should have seen it coming.
I should have noticed the increase of down time between projects. Suddenly I had time to download 400 MP3s a day and waste time on websites like MySpace (www.myspace.com/eschersmallwater). But this didn’t tip me off. Neither did the hiring of a new designer, fresh from college, for about $10,000 less a year than me. Somehow I managed to stay blissfully ignorant. The day they let me go, however, I had an overwhelming feeling of doom from the time I woke up. I rolled into work with a travel mug of coffee and a mild case of heartburn. When I got into the office, the smiles from my superiors seemed just a tad bit too polite. I felt kind of … Read more »
I was taking a bubble bath when my dad told me about sex. Without any sort of warning he hunkered right down on the toilet across from the tub and began hurling words like "vagina" and stimulation" my way as my bubble cover quickly evaporated, leaving me naked and pruny in tepid water. The awkwardness of this sex talk pretty much set the stage for our relationship on that subject. Like most every other teenager since the dawn of time, I did not talk sex with my dad much. Not that he didn't want to. It was he who tossed a box of condoms in my lap one rainy afternoon after picking me up at school. "I can teach … Read more »
I’ve always hated my nose. It is short with a wide bridge that plateaus off the tip landing with a thud. There is nothing elegant or sculpted about it, unlike my mom’s nose, which could have been the prototype plastic surgeons used for rhinoplasty in the 80’s. My nose has no structure or shape that gives it any dignity. There is nothing as righteous as a bump. It is just shapeless, with round nostrils like a baby’s. When I was a kid, I marveled at how my index finger fit perfectly into my nostril, while my friends had to forcefully cram their fingers inside.
I was never angry that I didn’t inherit my mom’s nose because it was impossible. We don’t share the same DNA. … Read more »
In 1977, I bought my very first hand-held blow dryer. That ten-dollar purchase changed my life forever.
Every morning, after shampooing, I'd take the device out, plug it in, turn it on, and then point it toward my head. If I aimed it just the right way and then used one of those round brushes, I could reshape my hair. My main aim was to force it to obey my every command. In other words, I wanted to make it look less like an Afro and something more subdued and "feathered." In those days of the disco era, when John Travolta could be seen doing his thing in the film Saturday Night Fever and Farrah Fawcett (RIP) was the hottest woman … Read more »
Jets screaming overhead. Helicopter blades cutting the air. These were my lullabies where I came from.
Friends and neighbours came and went. That was life on a military base. Newcomers were often heard complaining about the lack of things to do. Wide eyes and a slack jaw were the usual responses. Nothing to do? But then… they weren’t born here. They didn’t spend almost 17 years of their life here and still not get to do and see everything they wanted.
It was utopia for a child if he or she knew where to look - what every person wants and needs and strives for and only children can find – but when you did find it, … Read more »
I left work early on Thursday. I didn't feel well, and we were leaving for Washington DC the next day, so I decided it was best for me to go home, rest and be good for the trip.
I just started this job the month prior. It was for an upscale dental office. The Doctor was great, not stuffy or stuck-up. He was the kind of person that would say thank you for the job you are doing and compliment you on how well you were doing it.
My first week in he told me I was doing fabulous. Finally, acknowledgment for hard work. It was wonderful.
I have affectionately decided to refer to myself as a House-Mother. It is a … Read more »
When the men were gone and she could no longer think of the word for the thing she used to light cigarettes, my grandmother, Barbara Russakoff—Bubba to those who loved her most—gave up, wrote a note, and overdosed on anti-depressants and applesauce. And it didn't work.
That was seven years ago. I was sitting in a gray cubicle in Boston pretending to work when I got the call from my mom. I don't remember the five-hour drive to Bubba’s home in Skowhegan, Maine. It was strange to be in her house without her. For the first time I could remember, the large, round schoolhouse clock on the wall opposite the table was silent. When I was a kid, its tick was the constant soundtrack of summer. … Read more »
I’ve been called an asshole many times before. Usually it doesn’t bother me. It used to until high school when I took a physiology class and learned that if we (humans) didn’t actually have assholes, we would bloat up and explode like shaken up soda cans, spewing feces and entrails all over the place. In essence, without assholes we would have the lifespan of a housefly.
In my estimation, the asshole (sphincter) is the third most important part of human anatomy. In keeping with this theory, I think the asshole (person) is the third most important type of person in the world (behind musicians and little people). I actually wear my asshole-ness as a badge of honor.
Which is why I was surprised at how embarrassed and … Read more »
Now that I’m a dad I have been trying to follow the path of truthfulness. It’s a process. In full candor, it is not one without a few detours. For example, once I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I knew it was wrong but if you’ve ever been to Reno you will understand my inability to suppress the urge. Of course, then I compounded the offense by telling everyone that Johnny Cash did it. Johnny wrote that song about it and made a lot of money. I see now how wrong that was.
Despite the occasional slip-up I really am trying to do better. Fatherhood will do that to a man, Honesty is important, after all, according … Read more »
As a young girl bearing the trifecta of awkwardness—baby fat, curly hair with freckles, and a mouth full of metal braces—all I wanted was to fit in. So when I was faced with a serious spinal deformity at 13, I made the decision to protect what little normalcy I had, even if it meant secretly risking my health.
It started in the seventh grade during a routine scoliosis screening. You remember the drill: girls in one room, boys in another, each told to remove their shirt and bend forward while a rent-a-nurse examined the sea of adolescent backs for irregularities. In my case, this uncomfortable scenario included two encore examinations and a letter for my … Read more »
"Laurel is on the pages of Life magazine!” Roger shouted. It was days after Woodstock and celebrity was in the neighborhood.
Laurel was our celebrity. She didn't just GO to Woodstock - she was memorialized in the pages of Life. No one was surprised. Like a celebrity, Laurel was also a stranger.
Whenever and wherever she appeared, Laurel smelled like fresh sex in broad daylight. Laurel was gloriously wanton, whorishly flush when she'd smile at a new man. Meeting up with Laurel was like walking into someone's bedroom unannounced.
Laurel was at least 25 years old, the first old hippie I met in 1969. Blue-eyed and beautiful, her dark roots peeking through short blonde curls, Laurel could run her fingers through her hair and take … Read more »
MILK RUN
Back at home a young wife waits.
Her Green Beret has met his fate.
He has died for those oppressed . . .
—Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler (1966)
Captain Bracey, Mr. Stephens and I were headed home to Vung Tau after a day-long parts route or “milk run.” I had finished putting the emptied cargo compartment of the Caribou in order, stowed my cleaning supplies, and laid back to relax. As I reread my latest letter from Myra Faye, I hummed words from a recent Righteous Brothers song, You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’, oh-oh that lovin’ fe-e-elin’ . . .
Myra Faye and my relationship had been like an overworked Army airplane, in the sky sometimes, on the ground lots. And … Read more »
Early in July of 1969 I proudly suited up in my blue blazer and bow tie for my very first airplane flight—a family trip to Miami from which I brought back pilot’s wings and my first case of sunburn. Only a couple of weeks later, Apollo 11 and its three astronauts would win the Space Race. This week, as pundits wax poetic about the cultural significance of the first moonwalk, I recall a slightly fussy and fastidious five-year-old who found three heroes in a time when they were in scarce supply for a future gay kid enthralled with the Huntley/Brinkley Report, Jo Ann Worley on Laugh-In and Benny Goodman’s more jitterbug-worthy compositions.
I was a constant source of amusement, even bemusement. “He’s so…creative,” my mother … Read more »
But no one seemed to notice my heroic effort. Fabrice marched inexorably off the front, and Terri, Louise, Nancy and Frank passed me one by one. We breasted a ridge and Camp 2 came into sight across a basin of deep snow. I glanced behind me, gulping for breath, and realized with satisfaction that I still led three people: Marshall, Dmitri and a new, enthusiastic guide we’d acquired named Pinky. On this section the strangest thing happened.
My one-step-one-breath rhythm, a pace that had served me well on every mountain I’d ever climbed, was suddenly no longer adequate. As the lead climbers shrunk in the distance, my one-step-one-breath became one-step-two-breaths, and then one-step-three-breaths, but the additional air didn’t propel me any faster. If anything I … Read more »
I moved toward the roof of South America with the tiny, shuffling steps of an old man, looking down at the bootprints my so-called friends had left in the snow. The sight filled me with gloom. Yet it was more appetizing than what loomed above: an old volcano about 100 stories tall, the summit of Mt. Aconcagua, the object of my sweaty desire for the last two weeks, a brutal thumb of rock that was my only hope of saving face.
The only sound was the uneven rasping of my breath and a faint, chilly breeze off the Andes. Then, clank! The steel crampons of my right boot hit stone. I had reached the rock. For an hour I’d aimed for this resting spot as … Read more »
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