Sadly, four of them, now, without you! I can still hear you whispering, “Let go.”  And then you were gone to your peace — no doubt, back in Mommy’s arms. I can’t say I’ve ever gotten used to being without you — because in a very real sense: you’re here with me every day.  What you taught me about how busy people can always find the time is so true.  And the joy you found in the little things, about giving to others, about how making it funny drives a point far deeper than a condescending lecture.  I look inside baby strollers, just like you once did,...

Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks hasn’t been put on my shelf yet. I’m still traveling with him — in so many senses. His memoir, On the Move, with its subdued red and blue cover — minus his striking motorcycle portrait that I  sacrificed along the way, has been in my hands (so snug in my heart, too) in this room and then that room serving up a bolt of literary lightning while I prune or did I mean to say edit my comedy.  His propensity for connecting,  his propulsive caring for his patients, his family, his friends reach the mark throughout. His prose glides so high but yet is so...

Oh, that sizzling sound that erupts when you rip open an envelope with gusto, knowing that something’s good inside and will immediately be yours to devour. And if it’s a letter from Murray K., and Jupiter is high in the sky, there’s a rich avuncular message in a strikingly legible handwriting that carries wisdom to the heart without any squinting about what’s what and which is which to slow digestion. And sometimes, just like this time, screaming out loud creativity climbs out of the envelope, too. Two kaleidoscopic crispy hued bookmarks — butterflies released and a...

I was 30 years old and feeling pretty snug in my spot.  As the managing editor of a respected NYC trade journal, I spent hours and hours each week interviewing shipping executives.  Everything was as my title suggested … manageable, until one spring day, when my boss, Jon Jacobs, set me on the trail of my very first ever high tech (as we called it back then) assignment. “Call Bill Bugbee at CSS in Oregon and find out what’s going on out there.” “Oregon?  His name is what?” I asked in a mocking tone. “His name is Bill Bugbee …” How could I start a...

In loving memory of George Gilbert and Willard Robert Bugbee, and all the other wonderful human beings who served in World War II.