My son graduated from college this past June. It took him seven years, due to a hiatus, a transfer, and several changes of major, and there were times I thought I’d never see the day. So when the moment finally arrived, it was time to celebrate. Now, I grew up in the sixties in New York in an Italian American family, and for us celebrating always meant one thing: inviting family and friends and cooking a meal for them. These... Read more
By Bradford Winters Continued from yesterday. Soon after landing at JFK from Tel Aviv Friday afternoon, I’m greeted by my tearful mother who can take her first deep breath in nearly two weeks. I’m relieved to learn that my family is en route from Tel Aviv, an hour into their flight as scheduled. But when we reach the parking garage, a call from my father-in-law informs us that the flight has been turned back due to electrical problems. What! Back... Read more
By Bradford Winters On a Friday morning in mid July, I entered Ben Gurion Airport in quite a different manner than when I exited it upon my arrival six weeks previously: by running for a bomb shelter. Back in early June I stepped outside the glass doors and into Israel for the first time, my first photo a snapshot of the airport control tower ablaze against the rising sun because…well…I don’t know—there was nothing else to shoot and I had... Read more
The orthodontist’s new office has a waiting room tricked out with video games—even a genuine old tabletop Mrs. Pac-Man. Grace and I were racing cars—and she was winning by more than a lap—when the woman in purple scrubs called her name. “Hey Grace,” she drawled, as Grace approached her. She had frosty blond hair and friendly blue eyes, and cool running shoes under those purple scrubs, rocking the hip-grandma look. She swung her arm in a wide come-on wave and... Read more
Called upon to present a gift to a small boy, I was asked to pick a book. I have no expertise in the area of children’s literature, so was left to select the things that I myself liked when young. That becomes difficult when you grew up in an era in which children were less cosseted and the books were more realistic. Old Yeller came to mind, but the dog dies in the end and nobody can have that kind... Read more
I’ve tried to stop policing adoption language, no matter how much phrases like “real mom,” “put up for adoption,” and “kids of your own” make me flinch. Before I entered the world of adoption (and not even the cross-cultural or international variety, which invite their own plethora of zingers), I didn’t understand the negative emotional power of these phrases. Such language virtually never originates from a place of disdain, however, but from a genuine lack of understanding. We gave birth... Read more
It’s comforting, in these confusing times, to know at least some truths are beyond dispute. We know they are beyond dispute because only repugnant people dispute them. These heretics question our sacred beliefs—each a product of recent revelation—about sexuality, gender, environment, and humanity’s origin. Their very dissent proves the heretics wrong—so wrong, in fact, that we needn’t acknowledge them. Truth is established by the facts, after all, not by debate. Truth is science and science is facts and when enough... Read more
The doorbell rang around 11:00 a.m. My hubby George and I were both upstairs. “Can you get it?” I called to him from my study. “Nope, I’m changing my clothes. I don’t have pants on,” he answered. So I ran downstairs and opened the door. A small woman stood there smiling, wearing a suit and a straw hat that seemed to be from an era long past. She looked to be in her early sixties. “I’m Rose Goldman,” she said.... Read more
Loren Eiseley was born in 1907. He died in 1977. For many years and until his death, he was the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. A scientist, he was particularly interested in the study of the origins of human kind. Eiseley was also a writer and a poet. He was a dreamer and something of a philosopher, too. Some called him a freak. Ray Bradbury once said of Eiseley that he... Read more
This year 233,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, while almost the same number of American women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. What breast cancer is for women prostate cancer is for men. And yet the funding of prostate cancer research is less than half that for breast cancer. In 2012, the National Cancer Institute spent $602.7 million on breast cancer, but only $256.3 million on prostate cancer. This amounts to $2,590 per new case of... Read more
Good Letters
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