To mark the passing of a good man…

I don’t remember how old I was when I read the short book, “Night.” I may have been 13, but I do remember being inordinately moved by the haunting passages, by the sheer pain in Mr. Wiesel’s words and by the notion that you can present the entire world in a sentence, if it is precisely …

When it’s good to miss an anniversary

All this week, I thought today was the anniversary of my last day at my old newspaper, but this says no. Now along with multiple other things I’ve forgotten, I can’t remember the date of my last day at Mother Courant. I guess that’s a good thing. It means I’ve moved on, sort of. I wanted to …

What I know so far about Frog Hollow, USA

I am working on a book for Wesleyan University Press on the Hartford neighborhood known as “Frog Hollow,” which is in sight of the state capitol, and it’s slow-going because I am easily distracted by the little anecdotes I keep coming across: During Prohibition, there was a neighborhood speak-easy named “The House of Three Knocks,” …