Category: Parenting

President James Garfield was standing on a train platform in Baltimore when Charles Guiteau, in Dr. Howard Markel’s delightful phrase, “broke through the crowd and entered the history books” shooting the 20th president twice. Medicine in 1881 was nothing to write home about. Doctors poked and prodded their unwashed, unsterilized

“Go ahead and shoot, you’d be doing me a favor” quips Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Warner Brother’s classic Casablanca. Ingrid Bergman—spoiler alert, she was married, not widowed, when they were dating in those sparkling flashback scenes—has blown back into his life. Rick is inconsolable, if a tad self-absorbed.

I don’t believe that I have ever abused the power, such as it is, of these columns by endorsing a product or service. I didn’t have time this week to reread all 680 of these previous essays to ensure that I have never suggested that my gentle readers buy anything

My father’s father was killed when my dad was not quite six years old. In 1929. My dad started smoking cigarettes when he was stationed in Texas during the war. By the time I was born in 1956 my dad was up to three packs a day. My dad would

Have you also been giving some thought to Ivan Danailov? To review, Ivan Danailov allegedly carved his initials into the Colosseum. You may have read about Ivan Danailov in The New York Times. Ivan Danailov’s defense, such as it was, was that he didn’t know the Coliseum was old. “I

Insanity is genetic, I am told. Craziness is inherited from our children. That our kids can discombobulate us as much as we befuddlize them is not news. Nor is the fact that our progeny inherit our best and our worst qualities. Like madness, apprehension, uncertainty, and unease can roll both

From Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing: A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, “Hey you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in

I can’t get no satisfaction suggested a 20-something-year-old in 1964. Subsequently, he has sold any number of records–something to be said for that surely–but what makes us think that our purpose going forward is about self actualization? Has the singer been satisfied subsequently? I would not presume to guess.  I

Atoms can not be trusted, suggests one of my favorite Dad Jokes. Because they make up everything. Atoms also make up the smallest units of matter—overlooking “quarks” which are both harder to spell and more difficult to wrap my head around—up, down, charm? Give me a break. Democritus came up