In 1962, I was a caseworker, not a social worker, in the Cabrini-Green Housing Project in Chicago. In that era, the difference between a caseworker and a social worker was simple. A soc...

A clerk in a health food store became upset when I said I didn’t see anything I wanted since I wasn’t a vegan or vegetarian and liked my

Can you hear me in the bunker, Le… Sorry to hear ISIS has you in a… But I’m delighted to know you’re… camouflaged in your bunker with an… Now you’re telling me ISIS is th…

The last visitor before I sleep is always the old priest puffing up the stairs to my door, a wine cask under each arm, a loaf of pumpernickel in his teet…

Maury’s wife frets about growing old withering up and sagging so it’s up to Maury

I told my son now that he’s a father he has to be careful about what he says around his child. No swearing, of course,

It was the first time that senators had been asked to go home and address parent-teacher meetings at all the middle schools in their states. Each had been given a sheet of talking point...

Faye gives Fred next door her sister’s number to call in case Faye dies. Faye’s 94 and feels okay. Her sister’s 90 and Fred’s

You were a little older than three the day your father taught you how to pee, standing up. Your father trumpeted your triumph and your mother laughed in the kit…

One, a nun, has her transfer in her hand. She’s silently praying. Another, a hooker, has her income in her purse.

She’s been making quilts for half a century and he’s been making poems that long as well and every now and then he brings a chocolate shake to her place

In the summer of 1956, any Saturday at midnight when the moon was full and the stars were bright, you would see Grandma Groth

Old Sol hires young Abdul, a refugee, to cut his grass and we… Saul tells his neighbor Old Paddy young Abdul does a good job and has a wife and three kids

Three sisters single in their 40s gather 'round the fire on a night of thunder to figure out which sister

The other day I was talking to a neighbor who said he has found a way to help the poor and improve our environment simultaneously. It’s no secret, he said, that we have a dire food shor...