The Narthex

In the early 1970s, I joined a singles’ mixer that took a charter bus to a hotel in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. About fifty of us worked on suntans around the pool enclave shielded from offshore winds by a glass barrier. Laughter, mixed with nonstop chatter, filled the air as alert…

Ready for a trip down memory lane? Even if you aren’t, a birthday can send you on your way! If it’s a septuagenarian birthday, count on it. Still, regardless of your generation, you can do some  philosophical packing before you head out—or get pushed. For a start, it’s worth noting…

We visited the Hawaiian Islands in 1987 and took a tour of Lahaina, the former royal capital on Maui. In that small town, the activity was along Front Street lined with stores and restaurants, and packed with tourists. In the middle of the historic district, Banyan Court Park featured an…

A new article in The Atlantic, "The War Machine Is Run on Contracts" by Kathy Gilsinan, describes the largely unacknowledged thousands of people who make possible U.S. military activity in the Middle East. As U.S. interventions have become more complex ("nation building") and drawn-out over decades, our military has relied…

Some years ago I visited the Fleet Space Theatre in Balboa Park where an exhibit in its science museum seemed to fascinate a crowd of onlookers. I drew close to read a placard claiming this intriguing treasure was from some Oriental dynasty, thousands of years old.  It was a simple…

Ah, the things we ask! When we’re running late, as often we are, we ask what time it is. When something goes missing, as it often does, we ask where it is. Or suppose we have a tough decision to make. Then we ask how to weigh the contending pros…

Jack, a member of our writing group, invited us to an appetizer party one afternoon after Christmas. On arriving, I rang the doorbell but heard no sound and saw only one car parked outside. I rang the bell again, then phoned to ask if I had the wrong time and…

Though using a wide variety of clever devices daily, few of us know how they work. Our roles in society are so specialized, and our cars and computers so sophisticated that most of us do not understand how they operate and can not fix them. All that matters to us…

Last week I went picketing, again. I say “again” because my picketing and protesting began, no fooling, at the Alamo during the Vietnam War. Last week the venue had shifted. The protest, in a duly authorized “Free Speech Zone,” was at Loyola Marymount University. The Democratic candidates for the presidency…

Every generation complains about the shortcomings of its successors. Grievances about the state of “the world today” have filled the thoughts of the grumpy (aged and ageing) since time began. But there’s never been a time when all was well. Dickens said it so nicely: “It was the best of…

At 9:00 on Saturday morning, cars are not jammed in the parking lot and only a few customers cruise the aisles of employee-owned WinCo's supermarket. At that early hour, it takes me about 30 minutes to finish my usual shopping list, with an average bill of $50 a week for…

1:00 PM, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Friday, April 15, 2011 Jason, Craig, Joe, and I sit together in the train's lounge. We are absorbed in the luscious scenery where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland conjoin with the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The Appalachian Trail runs through here. We are entering…

I once wrote an article claiming that the Incarnation of Christ had been the central and pivotal event in world history. A good friend, a professor of mathematics and certainly no fool, thought my view “curious” but said that he would prefer to award the title to the Invention of…

Ever run out of time to answer your children’s questions? (It’s not that we don’t have the answers, right?) Well, there’s always the handy reply “Just because!” But suppose it’s we who have the questions, and we don’t have the answers? What then? We could always ask someone, maybe a…

Slow-release pills are nothing new, but within a few years a once-a-month birth control pill will hit the market. An article at Wired magazine (Dec. 4) explains how it works. Birth control developers, pushers, and users have long recognized that user error is the Achilles heel of the reigning daily-pill…