In the summer of 1981 I was just beginning my pediatrics residency at Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I had done a rotating internship the year before at Nassau Hospital in Mineola, Long Island, just about 10 miles from where I grew up in a town called……

I saw a meme on Facebook recently that said something along the lines of, “If you can pronounce Daenerys Targaryen, you can pronounce anyone’s name correctly.” It was clever, and I can see the point that the poster was trying to make, but it’s not entirely true. Language is one…

The sudden death by shooting of a neighbor a block away from me a few nights ago has certainly got me to thinking. I didn’t know this man, but many people I know did know him. He was about 20 years younger than me. He was married and had a…

A lifetime ago, my friend, Joel Hershey, had an extra ticket to the Rep. Joel and his partner had season tickets, but his partner (whose name I don’t recall) had recently moved to San Francisco with the intention that Joel, who worked at Maritz, would look for a job out…

“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain Being in the deep freeze here in the Midwest for the past week or so has been difficult for all of us. One of the things I…

I had dreams, like every kid has dreams. I dreamed I would travel the world, become an astronomer, maybe even become an astronaut, and go to the moon. I cut out articles and made scrapbooks about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. I bought books about astronomy and treasured…

It’s hard to explain what a big deal “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was to me when I was a kid. Or how tenderly I hold it in my heart today. But of course, I’ll try. I was 11 years old when “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered on CBS in December…

Stephen Sondheim came to Saint Louis in 2018 to receive the Saint Louis Literary Award. He was the 50th honoree and the first to be honored for writing lyrics for musical theater. Since I was on the board of the Saint Louis University Library Associates, the organization that bestows the…

“I’m trying to change my life, but I don’t know where to start.” A friend posted this on Facebook recently, and it really resonated with me. …