My mother was a big advocate for guilt. “Guilt builds character,” she would say. “If you feel some guilt, you will become a better person.” I’m not...
In December, Andrea Ayvazian wrote a lovely column about the miracle of the human body. Her thoughtful piece reminded me of discussions I used to...
The proposal I am about to lay out comes too late to be enacted this year. It is my fervent hope that those in charge of these matters (God? God’s...
I recycle cardboard at my brother’s violin shop in Amherst Center. (I volunteer: this has not been my life’s work!) Perhaps that’s what got me...
In 1933, on the heels of the Great Depression, an unemployed architect and Poughkeepsie native named Alfred Mosher Butts, set to the task of...
I don’t know a whole lot about Franz Kafka, but after hanging out with him over the past few months, I can state with some certainty that he would...
Last month, I had my annual Medicare wellness check-up. As some readers know, once you reach 65, you no longer have a physical exam; you have a...
One recent morning I made a hasty decision to clean the entryway to our house. Up until that fateful moment, I had simply considered the entryway...