In Plain Engel-ish

I was waiting with my full grocery cart behind the woman being checked out. It was a Thursday, senior discount day. The woman seemed ancient, quite stooped, breathing a bit heavily. The young clerk at the register was making small talk while he scanned her items. He could have been her grandson — actually, her great-grandson.  He was absolutely charming with her: warm, funny, kind, engaged and engaging. I hadn’t seen a young man whose demeanor was that delightful since I don’t know when. Oh, I do know when: when I was looking in the mirror as a teenager. Yes,...

I loved hearing stories from my dad about growing up in Hungary before coming to the US at age eleven. In fact, I was about eleven when he shocked me by telling me that he knew no English at the time, and had to learn it — fast — to cope at school. At that age, I was going to Hebrew school in the late afternoons, after my regular school day, in order to start preparing for my Bar Mitzvah, two years later. Struggling with Hebrew pronunciation and vocabulary, I couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it must have been...

Mason Weems grew up as the youngest child in his family. The baby usually garners the most attention, but given that Mason had EIGHTEEN older brothers and sisters, he had to work extra hard to be in the family spotlight. Turns out, he made his whole life about staying in a spotlight from the time he was born in 1759. He studied medicine, but then decided that preaching in front of an awed congregation was more to his taste, and instead became an Episcopal priest. Once he was assigned to a parish, he realized that he was better suited for...

It is odd that Dorothy Parker, the unfailingly witty mid-century author, was also unfailingly suicidal. What a stroke of genius it was for her to combine these two contradictory impulses in one of her most famous rhyming ditties: Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. A contemporary of Parker’s was the Queen Of Crime, Agatha Christie. She could have perused Parker’s extensive suicidal possibilities in that little poem for the best murder methods as well. And yet with so many delightful...

Here’s a jaunty question to start us off this Monday morning. What are your odds of dying today?  Of course, many variables come into play, but overall the odds of your actually dying today are only one in 365,000. I’d say it’s more than safe to assume you’ll be there for any fun plans you might have for April 7th. This peculiar death-day theme has come about because I just gave my How William Became Shakespeare program for the bazillionth time, (rough estimate) and I always begin by pointing out that Shakespeare was born and died on April 23rd, making him...