My French Aunts

Both aunts on my father’s side spoke excellent French. This was quite an accomplishment for two Brooklyn girls from a poor Jewish family. Aunt Florence (1920-2009) went to Hunter College. She married a Merchant Marine engineer who joined the U.S. State Department after the war. They were posted in France, Germany, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, and …

Doctor Strange’s Neighborhood

For two years I rented an apartment in Greenwich Village behind a novelty t-shirt shop on Bleecker Street, located just next to the purported address of the Marvel Comics multiverse explorer Doctor Strange. The apartment was on the ground floor. I could unlock the metal window gate of the large back window to climb outside …