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School Days

Cold germs, Class 4-409, Gerard

Journal

It scares me now, how much I told Chuck Roy. What will he think? Will he be blown away? It didn’t seem so unusual, my confessions, after he made some, and I did edit my original full confession. Still, will he be shocked? Was it necessary? What prompted me? Ego or some expediency?

David Kemsmier: Scenes From Childhood

Many families possess tales of their occasional flirtations with opulence. Ours concerns Great Grandpa Kemsmier. Short of cash, he decided to sell his small matzoh business. The new management expanded into wines and other kosher delicacies — changing the company name to Manischewitz.

English Lessons

“Oh.” I couldn’t bring myself to say it — not yet. But she knew I’d understood and continued cheerfully. “Sometime we dig, we find a body — a hand, a foot. One student find pop — then he buried there, too.”

Favorite Places

The mountains, the Nags Head Casino, a cave in a thicket of forsythia

Waiting

Everything that has ever been in this house is alive, in you, in us. We’re going to spread that kindness — the winter fires, the rain splashing in on your bedroom curtains in July, the kitchen’s warmth, the light of the chandelier in your eyes, your moonflowers, your roses, the red in the dogwoods. I’ll give it away again and again and you do the same, you hear?

Photographs By John Rosenthal

The photographs in this selection are available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

Photographs By Priscilla Rich

The photographs from this selection are available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

Wrinkled Little Man With Sad Eyes

Book Review

The mature work of Somerset Maugham is nothing if not honest. It moves on the weight of his blunt, plain sentences, which he delivers to the reader like so many body blows.

Selected Poems