On Saturday mornings several bowed citizens gather on the sidewalk outside the clinic to read the Bible and pray.

First time seeing this doctor, a specialist. Took a month to get an appointment. The waiting room’s packed. I grab the last seat

America has had presidents who will be remembered as much for what they said as for what they did. Americans will never forget

I was very small the day they bombed Pearl Harbor but I remember my mother dashing around the kitchen saying nothing to me

We have one of those medical plans… my wife and I. The co-pays let us see a doctor, have a procedure, pay for medications. Can’t remembe… ever paying full price. Especially

He’s supposed to be a feral cat and I’d never tell him otherwise but when my wife goes shopping he waits hours for her patiently on his haunches

There are Merry-Go-Rounds on Main Street all over America. They hide in storefronts offering payday loans to people who can’t borrow money anywhere else.

It’s just a flophouse but it’s all he can afford and now it’s come to this. If he buys food he can’t pay the rent

In St. Louis young blacks carry guns like cell phones and use them often to shoot each other, as we read in the daily paper

On holidays I hear from Paul, who’s 80 if a day, who may have won his war on poverty without help from his friends. He won’t accept a cent.

It was an ancient city. All the young people left as soon as they could but the old remained in their mortgaged huts

Through the window I see the sun fire up for the last time today. There are jays in the trees near the meadow,

Some choose not to have children others maybe one or two three seems to be the max now it’s not like when Paul was young and a family might have had six or…

The tale’s a parable and it scares Bill more than any creepy clown hiding behind a tree

During the day there might be three cars parked at different places anywhere on the block. But at midnight there isn’t