Search Results

By Line search: By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

We don’t often discuss the war, but one day last week Olesya and I spent a few minutes doing just that. She told me with some pride about the destruction of the bridge to Crimea, which I hadn’t yet heard about. Somehow tons of explosives had been planted there. And this came on the heels of daring drone attacks on Russian air force bases. Many drones were being made by Ukrainians in their homes, she said, using 3-D printers and other easily accessible materials.

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

When he’s not coaching basketball for a community league, our grandson is waiting to hear from the law schools he’s applied to. He is ambitious, with hopes for a top school and plenty of grant money. He thinks about a clerkship and then possibly a job in academia. For more than a year he studied for, took and retook the LSAT exam until he got the grade he expected from himself. His family looked on amazed at his gritty persistence.

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Are we getting stupider? David Brooks writes in the New York Times that stupidity has come to define our politics. Even intelligent people can also be stupid, he argues. They can come to believe in conspiracist theories and make decisions against their own interests.

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Recently I read an article about the country’s most popular dog toy — Lamb Chop. According to the article in The New York Times, dog owners “throw Lamb Chop-themed parties and photo shoots.” They find Lamb Chop costumes for Halloween, along with other...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

 Among the frightening campaign promises/threats issued by our new president was the prospect of mass deportations beginning with a form of concentration camp where the deportees would be assembled.This would be one of the key actions that would...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

 My mother-in-law was a very disciplined person. That’s putting it mildly. A public school music supervisor, she would do a spring cleaning every year when school ended. And what a cleaning it was. She would start at the top of the house, taking up...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Getting older means finding it difficult to open things. Things like jars of jam, things like bottles of juice. This has a lot to do with the waning power of hands and wrists. But I would also argue that it has to do with some devilish inventions for...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Nothing surprises me more than the advancing ages of our sons. Your own age is a given, and somehow you get used to it, and in my case at least, tend to anticipate the next annual changeover. I think of myself now as 88, although that won’t officially...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

 Recent news reports and events have reminded me that my husband and I are living in a parallel universe. We use a landline and we read print newspapers, which are delivered to our house daily.I have and use a cellphone, but my husband does not. He...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Recently I decided I would face up to cleaning up my recipe collection. You know, those clippings and notes that most cooks accumulate over the years. My mother had a neat wooden box with handwritten notes on file cards. She would often include the...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

‘You’ll have to speak louder,” I remember saying to a nurse about my father. “He is quite deaf.” My father looked up, annoyed. “Hard of hearing,” he said.He was over 90, and in the hospital with congestive heart failure. His hearing loss had gradually...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Have I mentioned that I read the obituaries in the Gazette every morning before I start my day? Does this sound depressing? I don’t find it so. It somehow anchors things for me.I can learn about people in my community and about how they or their...