Firetruck Bombing Do you ever feel like you have embarked on a journey, entered a path through the woods, traveled hundreds of miles only to find yourself right back at the path’s entrance?  That is how I feel about television.  Growing up I had the choice of watching three networks (and later four—UHF).  Then along came cable and HBO and Prism.  One of the great selling...

Imagine This I inherited a number of values from my Italian ancestors:  love of learning, a strong work ethic, devotion to family, and perpetual pursuit of al dente cooked pasta. I also received the gene dedicated to the mistrust of good fortune and the defense against catastrophe by simply imagining it.  This legacy works like this.  If I board a plane to St. Louis, I predict that the plane...

Measure Twice, Cut Once Sometimes in life there are exact moments.  Reasons for why we like certain foods or why we behave a certain way in certain situations are often murky and complicated.  At age five we love tater tots, at forty we won’t desecrate our sense of taste with one.  How did that change occur?  But there are rare occasions when we know exactly why we like what we like and why we...

Remote Control My father-in-law, like my own father, in fact, like most fathers of the Great Depression generation, was not fond of add-ons.  When asked why he would not include an ice cube maker in the purchase of his brand new refrigerator, he replied, “One more damn thing to break down.”  I did not achieve his wisdom until I reached his age when he made that comment, and therein lies one of...

We Are History There are days, weeks, years, shards of decades that I cannot recall with any great clarity.  But I remember with the clearest of vision a slightly chilly but sunny Friday one autumn when I stood on the corner of Walnut Street and Day Avenue in Ridgefield, New Jersey.  With me was one of my senior classmates, Jack.  We just stood there, not knowing what to say or what to believe. ...