In the autumn of 1970, I dropped out of U.C. Berkeley, took a job with an ecology group, and moved into a hippie pad on the corner of Ridge Road and Leroy Street. I should have finished my M.A. in Journalism that spring, but in April, after heated demonstrations over...
In the midst of preparing for this year's annual trip to Britain, I find myself thinking about my first one: a fabled journey that took place back in the mists of time, when the world was young, Stonehenge was rising on Salisbury Plain, and a tree-squirrel could swing...
As I noted in a guest post on Tammy Patrick's excellent blog, Nurse’s Notes, I've been thinking about high school after a recent visit from one of my oldest friends. I wasn’t one of my high school's cool kids. My hair insisted that it was Born Free and refused to be...
See those bridges? Somehow they've joined and slang is sneaking across them from the US to the UK. There used to be a divide between people who say “you guys” and people who don’t, and that divide was the Atlantic Ocean. When I was studying for an M.A. in Liverpool in...
I’m not sure which Mom noticed first: my father's crooked grin or the twinkle in his eye. Or was it his straight, aristocratic-looking nose, which he passed on to me? Not his actual nose. One that looks similar. And where did I get my obvious jokes? Read on. “Back in...
Once upon a time (1973), in a galaxy far far away (Liverpool), I was invited to the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun by Allan Williams, “the man who gave away the Beatles.” "You must come," he said, pressing a badge into my hand. "It's a home for...