Most Father’s Days come and go without much fanfare, taking an understandable backseat to Mother’s Day the month before. But this year Father’s Day lingered for me, despite my being more than a thousand miles distant from my two grown sons, who live in Florida and are fathers themselves. And damn good fathers they are, […]

When I was a kid in the 1950s and ’60s a phone call was usually for something important, as in a death in the family or a medical emergency. Since my mother was the youngest of 12, we received many of the former. As time passed and telephony improved, rates decreased and we got closer […]

A phone call I received the morning of Saturday, May 2, 1998, at my home in Portland changed my life forever. My sister received a similar call in her Wisconsin home from our brother in St. Paul. My brother received a call as well, telling him that our beloved mom had been found dead in […]

Oshugbo, Nigeria, 1992: I had wanted my wife and daughter with me, but my wife strongly vetoed that. Our daughter was only 18 months old. Though our daughter was not travel-ready, my wife thought I should go. At the end of my three-month stay, we would meet in the middle. (Vienna. Great city for romantic reunions!) […]

Years ago, long before we had cellphones, back when we were still using that green rotary dial phone mounted to the wall in our 1970s kitchen, I remember the day I hung up on my mother. We were talking on the phone, me the know-it-all teenager, Mom the working mother trying to do it all. […]

A phone call can change a life. In this case, it changed multiple lives (four, to be exact). Growing up, I never felt like an only child. I was always surrounded by friends, but I craved the sibling bonds that I witnessed in the lives of my friends. After months and months of adoption parties […]

It was frigid, midwinter 1991. I was 35 years old. The all-women’s party had been on the calendar for weeks. These parties, dear reader, were underground celebrations. Dozens of women from all over the area and all walks of life could stand around with a beer in one hand and talk softball, politics, work, tell […]

I’ll never forget the search coordinator’s first words after I picked up the phone: “Peter, are you sitting down?” Well, I was at the time, but when she broke the news, I jumped out of my seat screaming and punching my fist in the air, then dissolved into tears and sobs. When I called my […]

When I think of a phone call that means something to me, I think of a voicemail from Mike. I found it sometime after Mike passed away, still sitting in the in-box on my phone since the day he left it, Aug. 8, 2018. For a while I listened to the words, “I saw you […]