Category Archives: family

BIG FOOT by Peter Nolan Smith

In 1977 I moved out of my SRO room in Greenwich Village to the East Village with my hillbilly girlfriend. The third-floor walk-up on East 10th Street had a bathtub in the kitchen and a water closet off the living room. I carved Alice’s name on the wooden window sill. We lasted until 1979. The […]

HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD by Peter Nolan Smith

Distances around the world have dramatically shrunk with the spread of jet transportation. Columbus’ voyage to the New World lasted almost two months. That trip from the port of Palos in Spain to Plana Cays in the Bahamas would now take about twenty-hours with a train to Madrid, flights to Miami and Nassau followed by […]

The Name is Fenway

I was born in Boston in 1952. My childhood, teenage years, and college career were spent within the confines of New England. My heart belonged to the Celtics and Red Sox. These allegiances were never challenged by my decades of living in New York or anywhere else in the world. When the Red Sox came […]

Family Humor

My Great Grandaunt Bert told a skunk joke to my youngest sister and brothers. “There were two skunks; one named In and the other Out. Once their mother said to Out, “Go find In.” Out went out and found In fast. Momma skunk was happy and asked how Out found In so fast. “In Stinks.” […]

THE PRESENCE OF THE GONE by Peter Nolan Smith

Boston is a four-hour bus ride from New York. My brothers and sisters lived in the southern suburbs of my old hometown. After my return from overseas in September 2011 from my European posting I called several times to arrange visits, but my father’s death in 2010 had disconnected our present paths from the routes […]