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life sketches - Page 2

Life Sketches: A Sky View of Dad

“Now, don’t ya be touching that crank,” my father warned. “Last time it rained I had a flood.” He was referring to the handle that operated the Sky View window in the roof. It was somebody in Detroit’s brainstorm—people riding in the city cab would be able to see the tops of skyscrapers. Dad viewed the innovation as a leaky nuisance, a target for pigeons.…
July 10, 2025

Life Sketches: Five Easy Pieces and a Spinet

Awhile back my good friend and chicken guru, Jim McNulty, called to tell me that he had found the piano of his dreams: “a Winter spinet for free!” It was down in Middlefield and he wanted to know if he could have the use of my truck to bring it home. I told him about a terrible time two friends and I had had getting an old piano out of a basement because it was so heavy and the stairs…
May 29, 2025

Life Sketches: Cousin Chickie’s Greatest Gift—A Christmas Story

We lived in Bensonhurst, in a 12-room Victorian that had been divided into apartments. I occupied the second floor with my dad, while Chickie and his wife and two babies lived on the first floor and my Aunt Edna and Uncle Dave and their sons Leo and Charlie lived on the attic floor. There was also Mr. Bilideau, the boarder, who was a leftover from the time when my grandmother had rented rooms. There had once been a Mr. Yumtov…
December 19, 2024

Life Sketches: Bring Your Own Bag

I knew they didn’t like American soldiers in Germany, but I didn’t encounter unfriendly vibes from the French until attending the Running of the Bulls in July of 1966 in Pamplona, Spain. I am a Francophile, due to my maternal grandmother’s origin being a French mountain village in the province of Auvergne.…
June 27, 2024
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PUTTING THE COMMUNITY BACK INTO THE NEWSPAPER

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