Category Archives: family

Big Bird Day

Two years ago I walked through Grand Central Terminal. Thousands of passengers were striving to catch a train home for Thanksgiving. My sister had invited her family feast outside of Boston. I have to work on Friday and opted out on the holiday exodus to spend a quiet day at the Fort Greene Observatory. I […]

Glatt Thanksgiving

The Brownist English Dissenters fled their homeland in the 16th and 17th Century to escape religious persecution by the Church of England, which worsened with the return of the Catholic Stuarts’ return to the throne. Leyden in Holland welcomed the refugees, but the Puritans led a precarious economic existence in the Netherlands, whose people were […]

Rasta Mayan

Everyday thousands of migrants from foreign lands cross the southern borders of the United States. Many are Mayan. They seek salvation from the terror of war, drug dealers, their governments and climate change. The short parents come alone or with families. Few suspect how America will transform their genes. The young are changed biologically by […]

Bertha Goes Whaling 1871

I want to be an angel And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead And a harp in my hand. The ship was sold in March, 1873. Capt. Hamblin, my father, had decided to give up whaling and go home. The ship sent home 895 barrels of oil and never went back to […]

August 1, 1995 – The South Shore / Watchic Pond – Journal Entry

I had planned on leaving for Asia the previous weekend, but after a long phone call with Todd Shigekane, I decided to bus north and visit Michael’s grave as well as my grieving mother. She had lost her baby son. His birth on December 7, 1960 was clear in my head. Thirty-five years ago. I […]