So, today I was going to write the big one. The column so profound and eloquent, the Pulitzer people wouldn’t even bother voting. The column so witty and full of wonders, spacemen would return to Earth just to get a copy. The column so sagacious, pregnant ladies would read the piece over and over to […]

It was 1994. Big hair was out; grunge was in. O.J. Simpson was accused of murder. President Bill Clinton was welcoming his interns. Somewhere in Canada, a tow-headed child named Justin Bieber was born. His parents immediately uploaded the boy to YouTube, which hadn’t been invented. Meanwhile, in Hartford, Conn., I was attending a newspaper […]

The kid’s name was Phillip and he was a deep one. The silent type like you read about. This was a cat who wouldn’t say “Fire!” if his own head was ablaze. You know the type. While everyone else is babbling and hollering and sharing all the minutiae of their mundane lives, there’s that one […]

And there it is — another giant stride toward the land of the ancients. Soon, I’ll be making old-person noises when I rise from a chair. Any day now, I’ll be napping at noon. So, I’m riding in my car along with my niece, who’s — I don’t know — somewhere between 5 and 12 […]

It’s in my blood, you know. My grandpa was a farmer from a long line of them. He was a man who limped everywhere because as a kid, he shot off his pinkie toe with a rifle. A man who could find water with a sliver of apple wood, or catch a bat by throwing […]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The night a group of students flared up in protest at Bates College back in the late ’90s, I showed up at the scene in sweat pants. Not pajamas. Sweat pants. Got it? I’m just trying to live my life. I’ve been thinking a lot lately […]