One day when I was 12, two kids started to taunt me, then they threatened me, then they tormented me. They were both bigger than me and I was afraid so I tried my best to get away from them. But I couldn’t. I needed help. This was in Cleveland at a s...
Did you ever have a life-plan that changed radically? Like you thought for sure things were going to take you to the north, but then something happened and you had to turn south? Last week, two events converged and forced me to consider one of the ma...
A few weeks ago, I did something shameful. A door-to-door salesman knocked on the door, triggering our dogs, who barked wildly. I slipped out the front door and found a lanky young man, probably younger than my son, dressed as if he were going golfin...
At my brother’s going away party, back in 1985, on the eve of his departure for a job in South Carolina, a large-ish group of us packed into The Trio Tavern, a crappy, neighborhood bar in Cleveland. (It may have been a crappy neighborhood bar, but it...
My wife and I traveled to Portland, Oregon a couple of weeks ago to visit one of our kids who was there on a business trip. We had no specific agenda other than to check things out in and around Portland and so we ended up at the Multnomah Falls alon...
This Picayune is written with a heavy heart, as America’s far-too-easy access to military-grade weapons has caused yet another unthinkable tragedy. The grief and fear over gun violence is palpable, and to ignore it is inhuman. But I’ll tell my little...
When my adult son was starting high school, he was into some shenanigans. I didn’t catch him red handed in anything, but I recognized some things from my own youth. I suspected he was raiding my liquor cabinet. For the record, my liquor cabinet was a...
When I was about seven, I was jonesing for a suede vest with fringes on it. That was kind of a big deal for me because day-to-day clothes were kind of drab in our family. Most of my shirts were hand-me-downs. I had two older brothers, and cousins u...
In the most recent Picayune, I told the story of my car problems in Middle-of-Nowhere, Ohio and the not-so-friendly farmer who let me use his phone. It was after ten p.m. when the tow truck showed up. After some basic trouble-shooting, he dragged my...