The balls of his black pupils stare at me intently. They are oddly echoed by the round marble of what looks like a self-shaved head, its yellow stubble hinting at what must once have been luxuriant blonde hair. Moments later, I have second thoughts about my diplomacy as lyrics to the band’s “Speak English or Die” batter the room.
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SHORT/STORY: ‘I can see clearly now’
had to get out of town. Get lost, evade the race of human beings. Seek out geese and turtles, beavers and blue herons. Gunned the car 50 miles per hour, 70, 80. Slowed to make the left turn. Parked on white gravel near the trail head. The way forward was barred by a long rusted gate, hinged and anchored to a chest-high concrete post. Only footfalls allowed hereafter.
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IT’S A MOTHER’S DAY THING: One Rant, One Song, One Memoir
She had the greenest of thumbs, a bright intellect and dreamed of being the kind of writer that Toni Morrison, a hometown contemporary, became. What to do when your mother — in the late stages of Alzheimer's — is moving mutely toward her departure from this life?
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‘WHAT IF YOU KNEW HER?’: The Protest 7 Years after the Kent State Massacre 50 Years Ago
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, in which four students were gunned down on May 4, 1970. As a student journalist, I profiled a protest seven years later on the Kent campus, where the memories remained raw and more than a thousand converged to protest.
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SONGS OF COMFORT, SONGS OF HOME: “Till There Was You”
They were young idealists picking up trash across America. One of them could nail a tune from "The Music Man." (NOT "76 Trombones.") Enter a ponytailed, cigar-chomping Cincinnati jazz pianist in a Parmesan-wedge of a club in the hazardous part of town.
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The Christmas People Put this Hat On Me
The Christmas People put this hat on me. A bright red hat with thick white fur. And a big ball that blocks one eye. So it begins.
