A gay boy and his deaf uncle connect through the unspoken experience of being outsiders in a family It was a warm evening and we were eating outside on my grandparents’ rarely used patio. We gathered at Nanny and Papa’s, my maternal grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving, the High Holidays, and…

Being Single During Covid — Alone Together — the public service announcement crows on my TV, as various celebrities remind me to stay home, to maintain physical distance, to clear the way for the front-line workers who are just trying to do their jobs and risking their health for us, for the common good. I…

Watching my mother’s decline — “Your mother’s candle is flickering,” the nurse says, her flat Midwestern vowels transporting me back to Cleveland, 600 miles west, where my 94-year-old mother is fading away in assisted living. I am the dutiful son, the one who visits every two or three months. I am the one who still…

Getting through the holidays one day at a time — Each year, when the holidays roll around, I tend to hibernate — or try to. As a single, gay, Jewish man, I feel like an outsider. Despite the formerly-hyped “war on Christmas,” it’s hard not to feel apart from the mainstream if one doesn’t partake in the great American holidays…

Writing Prompt #22 — Back in my early thirties, when I worked at Boston University, I had a love/hate relationship with the winter holidays. While I looked forward to vacation and two weeks away from work, I dreaded that much unstructured time, and having no one to spend it with. …

Getting older doesn’t always mean getting wiser — After almost two years of living in Covid-induced isolation, hunkered down in my one-bedroom apartment with only my cat and my TV for company, I moved into a communal house in downtown Boston in late 2021. …

A Boomer looks backward and forward — When The Who came out with their hard-driving “My Generation” in 1965, I was just starting to pay attention to pop music, tuning into CKLW radio out of Windsor, Ontario on my AM transistor radio and grooving to whatever tune squirmed into my ears. CKLW featured the sounds of Detroit…

What’s the new normal in the pandemic era? — According to President Biden, the Covid pandemic is over, history, fini. Even though I’m an admirer of our current president, and appreciate his decency, persistence in running until he finally reached the highest office in the land, and the obvious upgrade in Oval-office- occupant from his predecessor — he of…