Essays

My essays that have appeared in PineStraw Magazine.

The Black Hat

Happy returns and small kindnesses

I have always liked to wear hats, not only to keep the sun out of my eyes and off my face, but because I don’t have good hair — it’s too fine to provide much warmth for my head and too flat to hold a nice style. A good hat, however, must be more than serviceable, it should define you. Such a hat is not easy to find. More…

Cafeteria Girls

Soaking in the songs of heartbreak

“Allen, Cole, Cunningham, Englehart,” the teacher read off the first four names from her alphabetized class list. We four girls filed out the door of our classroom and headed for the school cafeteria, where we would be the cafeteria ladies’ helpers for September. The next month it was supposed to be the next four, and so on down the list, but we proved too darned good to give up. We got to keep our plum assignments — not only getting out of class half an hour before lunch and half an hour after, but also getting to keep our lunch money: 25 cents a day, $1.25 a week, $10 a month. Not to be sneezed at by a sixth-grader in 1962. More…

An Honest Day’s Pay

And a friendship for the ages

My first summer job was the brainstorm of my best friend, Sheila. She came up with it as we were lying on the deck of her parents’ house, catching some rays before a trip to Ocean City with my mother, a friend of hers and her kids. More…