The afternoon was grey in that penetrating, depressive sort of way that November afternoons in New Jersey can be, and if you’ve ever been in New Jersey on one of those November afternoons you know the kind of grey I’m talking about. Well, that’s the kind of grey that November afternoon was, and we were let out of school early that particular Friday since that night was our school’s Military Ball, the big social event of the year. You got…
This story is in the Growing Up New Jersey collection, a series of vignettes slouching their way into becoming a book. See more vignettes in this collection at the Short Stories &c. link above. My neighborhood growing up was a little like a solar system, the neighbors’ houses being the planets revolving around our house. Except the planets didn’t move and were fixed in the neighborhood firmament. Other than that, though, it was kind of like a solar system, if…
This story is in the Growing Up New Jersey collection, a series of vignettes slouching their way into becoming a book. See more vignettes in this collection at the Short Stories &c. link above. Give a kid a tape recorder, you know, one of those devices that took little plastic reels of magnetic tape and had a microphone you held in your hand, and it was just an invitation to head down the rabbit hole. I had one of those…
This story is in the Growing Up New Jersey collection, a series of vignettes slouching their way into becoming a book. See more vignettes in this collection at the Short Stories &c. link above. Some months just stand out. October 1957 is one of those months. That was the month the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth. On October 4, 1957, to be exact. If you were around in October 1957, you’d know that Americans…
This story is in the Growing Up New Jersey collection, a series of vignettes slouching their way into becoming a book. See more vignettes in this collection at the Short Stories &c. link above. There are rumors circulating that the world is about to end, so this seemed like a timely posting. I don’t have a clue what it’s like today, but in 1954 Sussex County, New Jersey, was a very dark place at night, indeed. Especially to a four-and-a-half-year-old…