The lake itself is called Michigan, which seems a bit unfair to you, doesn’t it? I mean, you’re only 8 years-old, but you can read a map. It looks to you like Wisconsin has about as much a claim to the lake as Michigan does. Lake Wisconsin! That’s what it should be called, not Lake […]

Had it been you or one of your classmates listening to a hidden transistor radio, and had it been any other time, Old Sister Mary L. would have quickly and even gleefully beaten you (or them) to the point of delirium. But this time it was the old nun herself who kept pausing to check […]

The Second World War ended five years before you were even born, and that seems very, very long ago, doesn’t it? But that’s only because time moves very slowly when you’re little. It’s the opposite when you’re big. Believe me! Someday, many years from now, you’ll wish you could slow things down a bit, but […]

You have no memory of it yourself, but you’ve heard Mom and Dad tell the story a hundred times: How baby Johnny, just a year old, would stand against the back of the sofa and monitor the traffic from the living room window of their small upper flat on Milwaukee’s South Side: “Blue car!…Red car!…Green […]

Going to the Milwaukee Road Depot to see Grandma off on the first leg of her journey back to California is usually one of the highlights of her annual summer visit: The hustle and bustle of the station, the loud ringing announcements of arrivals and departure, the tearful reunions and farewells, and of course the […]

And if you think The Wizard of Oz is important to you now, just wait. To a great extent, the rest of your life will be defined by that movie and the memory of watching it in the living room with your family. Once. Every. Year.

…and that’s just fine by her. You might not know it yet kiddo, but Mom is the only mother on the block who never got her driver’s license. In fact, she will live the rest of her life without having ever operated a motorized vehicle. Why? Who knows? Some combination of panic and rage I […]

Sometimes, when I look back through the years, the memories are so vivid, I feel I’m right there. Great times, crummy times, sad times, and even some times when nothing at all seems to be happening. It doesn’t seem to matter. I still feel like I’m right there with you. I know you can’t see […]

It was the most exciting day of your young life, wasn’t it? The day you left for California to visit Grandma and your cousins. Mom and Dad kept it a secret right up until the very moment you left for the station. No doubt they felt that you and your brother would get too wound-up […]