As I passed by a pool filled with kids on a muggy day, I realized that they were playing the game Marco Polo.  I had played this game as a kid, but thought it was perhaps a faddish or very local thing, but here it was again a generation later.  Marco Polo is an aquatic…

Along with the crossword puzzle, the Wedding and Celebrations section justifies the hefty price of the Sunday NY Times.  Back in the 1960s, I used to peruse this section in the remote possibility of recognizing a name.  Beyond that, there was always plenty of snickering at the east coast WASP elite that was featured, with ridiculous…

The basic plot lines of  forbidden love, the overwhelming desire for what you can’t have, undiluted jealousy have been the fodder for umpteen movies, cheap paperbacks, great works of fact and fiction, and certainly scads of episodes of Law and Order.  But you add in the detail that the basic tawdry love triangle included three…

For several years friends have been recommending that I read Nora Ephron’s collection of essays called “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” saying that we have a similar writing style and that both of us seem to be pretty agreeable about making fun of ourselves. I think that they are probably right, but I have…

Although the seven hour car ride to our vacation spot has remained largely unchanged over the past 40 years, the context has gone through several evolutions.  As kids, the absolute keyed up anticipation of summer vacation made the trip endless; with 5 kids there was endless fidgeting in the car, siblings crossing imaginary lines and…

It is easy to get nostalgic about the early days of flying, when air travel was still such a novel luxury that men wore sportcoats, women wore pearls and peppy stewardesses served macadamia nuts.  Everyone truly believed that they could “sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.”  Now the airlines have unbundled their services, charging…