Uncategorized

People keep asking me if I’m planning on retiring soon. “No,” I tell them. “I actually enjoy working and always have” My first big day of work came at the age of 11, in February 1966, when two feet of snow shut down New York City for a week and my two brothers and I hired ourselves out shoveling sidewalks. The $5 earned that first day was a big supplement to our weekly allowance and gave me a taste that there was more to be made out there. I later somehow landed a job with a door-to-door salesman distributing leaflets ahead of his house-to-house calls. Unfortunately, I got a little confused as to which streets I was supposed to be on and missed about half of the assigned deliveries. By the summer of 1967 I had a paper route, delivering about 40 copies every day of “Newsday,” the Long Island newspaper. As I recall, it was afternoon delivery during the week, mornings on weekends. I had a giant metal basket attached to the front of my bicycle and would fold the papers into a tightly wrapped bundle that I would wing towards the front porch of houses on my neighborhood...Read more

I always get a little nervous when it’s my month to pick the book. You’d think I would have gotten used to it. After all, the eight of us have been in our little book group for 13 years now. Whoever’s month it is gets to pick the next read. This time around I’ve assigned the least likely selection I would ever pick, the cyberpunk, sci-fi classic “Neuromancer” (1983) by William Gibson. Having just finished reading it I know I have reason to be worried how they’ll react. It’s a very strange novel, virtually impossible to follow through a delineated plot line – a hybrid that merges the film “Matrix” with William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch.” At least I’ll be able to count on lively conversation about the book. And that all who attend will have read it. Among the many great things about our group is that we come prepared and stick to the topic. That’s been the most satisfying thing about the group – and the fact that we have basically held together, through the occasional illness, job loss and, lately, pandemic. We still meet eleven times a year, skipping only August. And folks show up on time, precisely...Read more