A personal reminiscence of a famous day in U.S. history. In the fall of 1963, Mrs. Blough enters our world to fuss and fret over every sign of life in her fifth grade classroom. As a teacher she is predisposed to nervousness, which makes you wonder just why she would choose a profession that
Category: Memoir
A Father’s Day Reflection: Dad’s “Heroic” Stories When I was a small boy, my family lived on a cul-de-sac in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier. At the end of our street was an open field with a path that led toward a barbershop and small market that lined the road at the field’s other
Surprisingly, the clerk behind the window at the local police station doesn’t find my request strange. I am looking for the scene of a very old car accident, I tell her. I do not have an address, just an old police report with a brief description of a farmhouse a few miles east of Whitewater
[Excerpt from a work in progress.] My earliest memories are California memories. But by 1967 California is a place I have lived away from for years. I was eight years old when our family left Los Angeles for the suburbs of Chicago. At age 14, it has been three years since our last family visit
It is the fall of 1967. My father’s new job with the Hoover Ball & Bearing Co. takes our family from the Chicago suburbs to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The move means moving to a university town as liberal and lively as suburban Elmhurst is sloth-like and conservative. My two years in Michigan will open my
MARK HARRIS 