• HOME

    I don’t know what I expected to findstanding on the corner of a residential streetin Charleston, West Virginia, the domeof the capitol peering up in the distance.That is not surprising, the orange brick homewas much larger than I had assumed, but youlived there only a few years before leavingQuarrier Street to start a life of…


  • CLUELESS

    As someone who once taught Introductionto Literature at a local college, I was alwaysamazed to learn how little my studentsseemed to know about the great canon of workthat was the foundation of all they read.Some at least recognized that the West Side Storytheir parents had forced them to watch,and worse, to listen to, was based…


  • YOU ARE INVITED

    I have to compliment you,after all you ignored mefor four years in high school,condemned me to the outcasts,the geeks, the losers, the barelytolerated and then only whenthe Headmaster was watching. I didn’t go to your parties,no one without an invitationever dared, was left to theclubs no one wanted to join,but I have to say I…


  • PIXEL THIS

    I have it on good authority,supposedly, that the internetwill not he the death of me. I have my sincere doubts, andregardless, it has turned my worldon its head more than a bit. In high school and collegeI knew that a thick envelopewas an acceptance, a thin one a letter telling me this or thatIvy League…


  • NAME IT

    Aunt Tzipporah hated her name,detested it really, came closer to the truth.“What the hell were my parents thinking?”she said, “like being Jewish in West Virginiaisn’t going to be hard enough.On a good day I got away with being Zippy,but you try spending your Junior year in high schoolhearing “Hey Zipper” or having some jerkcome up…