• GET THE FACTS RIGHT

    GET THE FACTS RIGHT

    My first job as a nurse was at the Jersey City Medical Center. I had just graduated from nursing school and had taken the NJ State Board of Nursing exam. Since I hadn’t heard the results as yet (snail mail in 1962) I signed my name with a GN meaning  “graduate nurse” rather than RN.…

  • BE GOOD TO YOUR READER

    I took Stein with me to Monkey Joe’s and settled into a black leather vibrating chair in an area devoted to parents, grandparents and other responsible adults while the men’s semi-finals at Wimbledon played on one TV screen and some guys tossed a basketball on the other. My three grandsons scampered towards the inflated jumpy…

  • MY FAVORITE BOOKS ON WRITING

    MY FAVORITE BOOKS ON WRITING

    I go back every once in a while and reread the books that have always rewarded me with inspiration and encouragement. Especially now as I’m completing my book and can almost see a glimmer of light flickering at the end of the tunnel, I find I need that boost, the reassurance my work is not…

  • DEMISE OF THE PHYSICAL

    DEMISE OF THE PHYSICAL

    Back in the early ‘80s when I ran a not-for-profit clinic on the west side of Chicago for older people before annual physicals were considered “nonspecific” or “inefficient” or “potentially harmful” [“Let’s (Not) Get Physicals” (Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times, June 3, 2012)] I did a complete head to toe exam on each patient who registered, including vaginal…

  • WET YOUR LIPS

    WET YOUR LIPS

    Linda Jay, Michele Murdock and I are all writers. We are all of a certain age. And we all want to have a professional photo for our future book jackets. Enter Layne Sizemore, an accomplished photographer with patience, humor and appreciation of the older woman. Linda’s post tells the story of the photo shoot session and…

  • NURSE-BULL

    NURSE-BULL

    During a recent trip to France, our tour group went to Camargue in the Provence region and visited a “manade,” which is a Provencal ranch that raises white horses and bulls for the Bull Games. Unlike the bullfights of Spain, the bull doesn’t get killed. Loaded in a large wooden wagon pulled by a tractor…