Steven is a retired teacher disturbed by the problems he sees in education. Schools weren’t perfect when he was teaching but they were better than they are today. He has ideas for impro...

Wally and Stan neighbors on the same block for 30 years never had a problem until Wally asked Stan over

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

Melanie cried for hours the day a drunk driver ran over her dog a week after she had an abortion. She loved that dog so much she told her mother she knew

Three times a day a train roars through a field a farm away booming like an Angus bull looking for companionship.

“Screw the Vernal Equinox” is all Cootie Kelly ever says sitting triumphant with his foaming glass of Guinness on the last stool at Maggie’s

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...

Sarah makes sandwiches all day, piling meat and trimmings high on pillowy bread she spreads apart before her customers’ eyes. Hardworking men love her sandwiche…

Red, yellow, brown work well together in a portrait of society. Add black, no problem. But if we remove the red,

A minister’s son married a deacon’s daughter after a long courtship. It was difficult at times doing everything right

Long ago you said birth and death were the bookends of life. Nothing before. Nothing after. We were saplings at the time. Since then we’ve made a lot of mon…

A rainy Sunday and Pastor Smith is in his pulpit bellowing to the congregation, “I hope you understand

Seeing is believing smart people often tell me but no one ever told me believing is seeing

We have something in common, a fellow I talk to now and then. We’re about the same age and perhaps the only ones in the diner who think our past lives are interesting. So when the two o...