By Sidney S. Stark Childhood fantasies are important ways we have of communicating with ourselves. Sometimes vacations taken decades later can cause flashbacks that remind us of some of our most significant imaginings. For example, a writer friend of mine always wanted to be a Texas Ranger when he was a child. As a city… Continue Reading
Grandma Toby (continued from last post)
Grandma was married, her whole life, to Grandpa Harold. He died 25 years ago, but she remained bound to him, always. Theirs was a real love affair—she was swept away by this dashing east coast gentlemen and he never let her down. I can picture him in his blue and white seersucker suit, his polka… Continue Reading
Grandma Toby
Grandma Toby was enormously influential to me. She would fly me out from Colorado for the summer to visit her back east for three or four weeks every year like clockwork. Lazy summers at the neighborhood pool, the shopping mall, the beauty parlor, and reading on the summer porch before a leisurely afternoon nap. “Think… Continue Reading
A Grandmother Called Gom
Our ordinary suburban family life changed dramatically when Gom and Aunt Kitty came to visit. My mother, busy with her brood of four, and little household help, should have been nominated for sainthood. She insisted that the butcher at the A&P give her the very best piece of beef. She polished silver, ironed the linen… Continue Reading
Are You Listening…Really Listening?
by Sidney S. Stark Learning to listen instead of talking was a skill my grandmother tried to teach me very early. It was not a lesson I learned easily or well at that time. Some would say I still haven’t mastered it. But years of sales ‘how-to’ seminars on the subject and more years of… Continue Reading
He Who Hesitates…
by Sidney S. Stark “You have to be willing to risk everything, protect nothing, and then you’ll lose nothing in the end.” Is this advice from a professional gambler or perhaps a world-class downhill ski racer? It’s not hard to find many other possible authors of the seemingly outrageous counsel but a lot harder to… Continue Reading