This is the story of a remarkable, and I mean remarkable, man named O.J. Brigance. I will take some time to introduce him so that you fully grasp the enormity of the battle he is fighting. His enemy, vile and always victorious, is ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the cruel agent of death that took […]
Tilting at (Golf) Windmills
In the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote takes his lance and “tilts at windmills” as the saying goes, imagining their blades to be a giant’s arms. I can relate. I, too, have tilted at windmills — and usually lost . . . on the putting green. Not one of those manicured, meticulously shaved […]
The Old, Under Foot
The other day, I was leaving work and fell into step with a colleague who toils in the VOA newsroom. I hadn’t seen her for awhile, and I remarked, not very sensitively as I look back on it, that she looked awfully tired. It was the job, I figured. Yes, to a degree, she said. […]
English as MY Second Language?
Millions of times a day, Americans say THIS to each other: “Hey, what’s up?” “Nothin’ much. How YOU doin’?” “Fine.” These quick, casual greetings are as predictable as the sunrise. Imagine someone’s SHOCK if he asked “How ya doin’?” and you replied, “Well, not so good” and launched into a lengthy explanation as to why […]
Sports and the Black Dog
One night a couple of weeks ago, I was walking home from the Metro subway stop to my home, listening to a sports-talk radio station in my ear buds. On came an hourly update that included news that a body had been discovered on the grounds of Mike Flanagan’s four-hectare country estate north of Baltimore, […]
Remembering the Twin Towers
Like many Americans, I’ll never forget, not just the horror of watching hijacked airplanes fly straight into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York on the crystal-clear morning of September 11th, 2001, but also the immediate, defiant determination of the people of New York to rebuild the towers as quickly as humanly possible […]