I asked my husband to stop the car immediately.  “I’ve got to know what kind of dog that is,” I blurted out, as we were driving up a hill and an unfamiliar animal came into sight. Definitely part poodle, that much we knew.  Had a soft-coated wheaten terrier jumped the fence?   It was, for the moment, the most adorable dog I’d ever seen and I wanted to know more. “It’s a woodle,” she told us, smiling — and  mentioned that it was more than a handful, too. “A poodle and what else?” And as the appearance of another car made it impossible for...

(copied from an unidentified website targeting house sellers) De-Clutter! People collect an amazing quantity of junk. Consider this: if you haven’t used it in over a year, you probably don’t need it. If you don’t need it, why not donate it or throw it away? Remove all books from bookcases. Hoping to help my friend who’s just put her house on the market, I e-mailed her a link to a website with lots of house-selling pointers. I had a feeling that she might find a new suggestion or two.  She wrote back soon after, politely explaining that the book removal tip wasn’t...

Those were his words — wisdom from an old friend from my mid-20’s who went to Penn exactly 10 years before I went to Bryn Mawr.  Whenever there was a tense decision in sight, he’d help point out my choices and some of the possible consequences.  Frankly, his bluntness about making a deal sometimes irritated me.   Particularly when I made a foolish choice and the results were disappointing.   All  I wanted was a little solace, and he’d remind me about the conditions I’d accepted.  His harsh but truth-seeking mantra crossed the continent and at times has helped me...

Before I could bring the stories down  to the printer — a 20 minute downtown subway trip from my high school — I had one final step left.  I needed to meet with Richard Klein, the High School of Music and Art’s usually fair-minded principal.  Without his approval,  all our words stood still.  I can’t remember the exact ritual — did he read the stories in front of me and then sign off?  Or did he call for me after he’d read everything and then set me on my way?  What I do remember is the time I was told that my editorial about Constance Cook and the expansion...

My taste for underdog campaigns came early.  You might remember my mentioning the O’Dwyer Senate race in “36 Days.” That’s when Paul O’Dwyer ran as an anti-war Democrat against the ever-popular three term Republican Senator, Jack Javits…  Historians will tell you that every headline revealed how badly we lost, but, talk to anyone who was there and you’ll hear how we sank with smiles on our faces.  And Al’s legend lives on, long after he lost to Carter Burden, who spent a good part of his Vanderbilt family fortune to win a dead-end primary.  Carter...

The call came at the end of the day from someone I’d interviewed at a world affairs conference, when I was still writing for Pacific Shipper.  My name must have been collecting dust in her Rolodex — and I could hear her desperation.  Could I possibly feed four visiting Indonesian journalists who were eager to experience a typical American family dinner? They’d eaten less than typical fare in top restaurants across the nation for a week, and now for their last dinner they wanted to see how Americans really ate.  After ignoring emphatic family advice, I decided to make them a very...