Nellie Regan
“Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” Words spoken by a ghost, in this case Hamlet’s father, with which injunction he inadvertently sends...
John Hollander, a Reminiscence
The recent obituary for John Hollander in the New York Times took me back to my second semester freshman English class at Connecticut...
La Rentrée
I have never been in Paris in early October, never traversed le Luxembourg on the first day of school, when it is a little sad, yet more...
Detour: Haitian Houses
What follows is a detour from my rambles in Silver Lake and the beginning of another series, to be continued in haphazard fashion, about...
Silver Lake Ramble #2
Papa Legba, an old man with a crutch, stands at the crossroads, an intermediary between our world and the world of the Loa. Haitian Vodun...
Fresh Breeze
My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I’ll not be knowing, But there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, No matter...
Silver Lake Ramble #1
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring, I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may )I shan’t be...
Second Sight
Key to Family Names: Rose and Frank Van Dyke, my maternal grandparents Their children: Marguerite (married to Melville, daughters Marian...
Year Book
It’s a little like being in a Jane Austen novel. There’s tea at the parsonage, preachers abound. There’s a war going on on another...
Marian Plumsteel
Poor Stuart Little! A quick snap of the blind has sent it clear to the top and Stuart, crushed inside, is now distinctly uncomfortable,...