I was late coming to a love of Bruce Springsteen’s music. I missed his first two albums, and I was living in Vienna, Austria, when I first heard the “Born to Run” album. Two songs from the album — “Thunder Road” and the title song — were picked as two of Springsteen’s best songs in …
It’s amazing when we consider things in our lives that used to mean so much to us and now mean so little. Once was a time in my life that it mattered desperately to me that the Washington Redskins would win. In fact, if I consider things that had no real effect on my life, …
If there was ever a baseball writer better than the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell, I can’t think of one. There are certainly others in the conversation. Roger Kahn, Roger Angell, Ring Lardner (from a much earlier era). I love Mark Harris’s four books about Henry Wiggen and the New York Mammoths. But Boswell is just …
Three of the four people in this picture are dead. I think the tree is still alive. The three adults in this picture were born in 1895, 1895 and 1927. I attended the funerals of the first two — my maternal grandparents — and I’m really not 100 percent sure about the third one. The …
It’s difficult enough to name one child. Imagine having to come up with names for three at the same time. Mother Pep came up with Manny. Moe and Jack, a trio that made a lot of money. Donald Duck’s sister — or sister-in-law — came up Huey, Dewey and Louie, who were actually more famous …
Came across an old favorite movie of mine the other day. I have seen “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” numerous times, but it never seems old or boring to me. It’s got great acting, wonderful cinematography and an exceptional screenplay. It won four Academy Awards, which is outstanding for a Western. And as much …
I was in the drugstore the other day when I saw something that made me think. It was on the pharmacy counter, an incentive for getting a flu shot or some such thing. An assortment of small packages of candy — Peanut M&Ms, Nestle’s Crunch bars and … wait for it … Junior Mints. I …
I wish I had remembered to write this yesterday. Yesterday was my first grandchild’s birthday. Madison Nicole Kastner was born on Sept. 19, 2008, in Beijing, China. Thanks to her dad, my former son-in-law, I was able to hear her crying over the phone just five minutes after she was born. Ten days later, on …
Are you aware of the most profound thing you ever told someone else? I wasn’t. Until my son told me. When I married Virgile’s mother and became a dad to him and his sister Pauline, I had to acquire a new set of skills at age 42. They had a father, but he was 6,000 …
Most of us have heard the term “walking wounded” when it comes to war. Soldiers who have been injured in some way but are still able to function at least well enough to make their way off the battlefield.
