“Here’s more bottles, mama,” Kateryna said. Svitlana reached for three empties her daughter held out. Marveling at his family over a flickering blue flame that lit his last cigarette, Andriy crumpled and stuffed the pack in his down jacket pocket. Exhaling white smoke through his nose he spoke to Kateryna in a voice as low […]
Today is what many Irish-American Scranton residents and their cabbage-headed supporters call “Parade Day,” as if dawn in the Electric City broke as a high holy day they celebrate by pulling the nails from their hands, ascending into heaven and sitting at the right hand of God. One problem: snow postponed today’s St. Patrick’s Day […]
Carnage feeds fear today in Ukraine. Terrified civilians lack sustenance throughout their nation as desperation and deprivation replace food, water, heat and electricity. In America this morning, my indoor plumbing worked. My commode flushed. One-ply toilet paper felt soft to the touch. Perfumed soap lathered my hands beneath hot running water from the bathroom sink. […]
Speaking into the crackling microphone on the small plane’s radio, the Russian heavyweight wrestler spoke guttural Russian as we flew low and over the stacks of Three Mile Island. “That ought to get somebody’s attention,” I said. The wrestler’s laugh sounded coarse as Cossacks dancing on broken vodka bottles. Ivan and his comrades had rolled […]
Fifty years to the day after Nguyen Van Minh shot and killed Anthony Venezia in the village of Ben Suc, the former Viet Cong soldier knocked on the front door of the house where Venezia grew up. Anthony Venezia’s sister Angela answered. “Yes,” she said. “These are for you,” he said. Overcome with soft emotion, […]
