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Fifty years ago today on June 18, 1958 I took an early train up to Boston from Providence ($3.41 round trip fare) to spend the day in the city, with a good deal of book-shopping. But the first thing I did was to see a movie musical program of Oklahoma and Carousel at R.K.O. Keith's Memorial Theatre on Washington Street, now known as the Opera House ( Read more... )

My parents did not have a telephone installed in our house until about 25 years after it was built in 1925. Nowadays that would be inconceivable. But they were not accustomed to phones while growing up in a rural Italian town in the grips of dire poverty. There weren't any. So they remained phoneless in America for decades ( Read more... )

I gaze into the kaleidoscope of my past life and I see the younger me standing in the middle of a field where my father is at his annual burning of grass and leaves and brush. The smell comes to my nostrils and I sense the ache of nostalgia. My father wears a sweater that reeks of kerosene. He holds a broom with which he snuffs an errant flame ( Read more... )

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