Menace pumped up the volume in Mabel’s voice. Somebody better let me out of this closet soon or I’m peeing all over this nice American flag folded in a triangle and stored in this damn closet, she said. Earl jumped up from the table. Goddamn, that’s the flag from my daddy’s funeral. Mabel squealed. Oooh, […]
Countless white women in Scranton, PA, long ago gave up fighting sexism or never cared enough to begin with. One of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s largely unspoken questions in today’s battle for equal opportunity is whether Black women in President Joe Biden’s birthplace will take up the cause. Will a Black woman be the first woman to […]
Awakening from his nap in a cold sticky sweat, Casey rolled off the couch and called for his mother. Ma? Ma? Where was she? Feeling older every day at 75, Casey’s dream images from his nap remained stuck in his head and more vivid than the Day-Glo paint he sometimes used to draw tribal markings […]
Scribbling notes in red pen on a yellow legal pad to keep up with the judge’s hallucinations, the psychiatrist grimaced. Your visions don’t seem to be going away any time soon, she said. Lackawanna County President Judge Stanley “Stash” Dombroski giggled. You’re a tulip. I’m a mint julip, he said. Yes, your honor, life’s a […]
Next time somebody tells you how important local journalism is to democracy I’d like you to think about my first and maybe last experience with President Joe Biden’s White House press team. In a Jan. 21 email I asked White House regional communication director Seth Schuster three simple questions. I wrote, “A recent story […]
