Most Read from past 24 hours

The weeds needed pulling. Branches needed trimming. Dishes and silverware had piled up on the sink board. Books, papers, and crayons—the grandchildren were visiting—littered the dining room table and needed to be stowed away before supper. Yet there I sat on the front porch, drinking a Diet Coke, mesmerized by Rose Wilder Lane’s Let the
READ MORE
Church was crowded, and I ended up, as I often do, sitting near the back. Just as Mass began, I glanced over my shoulder, as I also often do, to see whether some elderly person or pregnant mom might need a seat. (Saint John’s is jammed full of young families and children.) I spend a
READ MORE
When he speaks of his son, you can hear the pride and the love in Ernest Ramirez’s voice. “When Junior was seven, I bought a couple of baseball gloves,” he tells me over the phone. “We played lots of catch, and he picked up the game right away. At first, if I threw the ball
READ MORE
“Who’s there?” That challenge by a guard at Elsinore Castle is the first line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “Who’s there?” is a question that pervades the play. We in the audience ask each of the play’s main characters—the ghost of Hamlet’s father; the ghost’s murderer, Claudius; Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, now married to her husband’s killer; the
READ MORE