When I tell people that my hometown is Banning, California, they nod and recall their drive through the place on the way to Las Vegas. This is a sure sign they don't know what I'm talking about. Or maybe they do. Banning is a place one only recalls having driven through. But, no, it's not Las Vegas, which generally involves a drive through that other "B" desert town of Barstow. It's Palm Springs. The last burg before the resort town is Banning. Jane and I just returned from two days in Palm Springs, Read more [...]

It's barely 2019, and I have thrown up my hands. Really. Literally. I just tossed two more of them, tiny plastic hands, in the general direction of Christmas presents. Yes, it is 6 January, and Christmas is allegedly passed. Not really. Jane tells me that this very day is Christmas for the Greek Orthodox Church. And, although I have slightly lost count, the 12 days of Christmas may still be rolling off the conventional calendar. In any case, Jane's daughter Eleanor, son-in-law Martin and grandson Read more [...]

It is cold in these parts, and in the Gubbio Project a fair number of San Francisco's homeless have spent some time on this colder-than-average day. The contrast is gobsmacking. I arrive in my tweed sports jacket, fresh from my neighborhood of high-tech corporate workers…to sit at a folding table dispensing toothpaste, socks and similar essentials. I record the name of each beneficiary in a computer. And the latter task is not as easy as it sounds. Many of the shelterees answer with a mumble or Read more [...]

I awoke in the night fearing my fear. Here, I obliquely quote FDR's famous caution that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Actually, FDR went on to say much more interesting things in that famous 1933 speech. In particular, "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." For me, this is as useful an FDR quote as the other. Because, yes, I am always struggling with "unreasoning, unjustified terror." And I might as well just Read more [...]

The level of mishigas rises considerably during that zone called 'the holidays' so I must cut myself some slack. But driving has been plaguing me of late. I'm tired of it. Just thought I'd share that, as we say in California. It's hard to say what the supposedly problem is. Well, no, actually it is easy. What makes it hard is the underlying narrative, to couch things in contemporary psychobabble. I'm not confident about hitting the right pedal at the right time. That is the thing. The other thing Read more [...]

The thing about reminiscing is that it is what old people do. And since I'm 72 and can hardly worry about such things, it is what I do too. Get used to it, I'm telling myself. And furthermore, let us acknowledge that it was what Proust did, and he wasn't even that old. He had no qualms about taking trips down memory lane. He wanted to know what memory lane was made of, how it was paved, engineered and marked. Go Marcel, I say.

What I also say is that one of the most contented moments I can recall Read more [...]