I can’t speak for other men but as I grow older I have found listening to my wife makes life easier. So when she said we should move to a retirement community while we’re still in reaso...

Spider in the sink this early autumn morning swirls in a whirlpool Donal Mahoney

Born at the foot of the mountain what will you do? You have time to decide but some die young.

And so I’ll tell old Max, and maybe he will listen, it’s time to call the plumber in and tell him,

Bill hates to go to parties but he loves to go to wakes. One of the advantages of being old, he says, is that there are fewer parties to go to but a lot more wakes. At parties he finds ...

I can’t speak for the women attending this conference on Homeland Security. They’re scholars, too, brought here for their expertise.

The haberdasher has that season of the year he rids his racks, his bins of oddments. I have no season of the year

A poor man comes to the door after the storm last winter and asks if he can have something to eat if he shovels the walk. You say forget about the snow.

It will be a while before Fred’s hometown has its annual food drive, he told me. That’s an important event because it helps stock the pantry at the small charity where he volunteers. Ri...

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…

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...

When Martha gets home from cooking class this afternoon, Martin will be gone after 30 years of marriage. Martha won’t know why

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