Stories,photos

129 results total, viewing 101 - 110

No piping plovers at the dunes, but I checked out Moonstone Beach and a single sandpiper came from the shoreline to greet me. Another day – a foggy/misty morn – as I strolled from the towers to the oblong where the Narrow River pours into Narragansett Bay, I found a solitary waterfowl, an avocet I think, short but with a long curved beak and heron-like legs. Perhaps it was a Stilt. It made up for my disappointment in not coming across cliff swallows or arctic terns. more

Mike Fink | 8/4/16

Accidental wonders in our own backyard

My neighbor Amy , who two decades ago purchased the house where my grandparents and aunts and uncles had dwelt, is a great hostess in all seasons, even mid-winter. She has a tree, a Norway … more

Mike Fink | 3/8/20

Christopher Columbus seen another way

Harry Ezratty’s helpful and useful study of Caribbean Jewish history, in “The Jews in the New World” trilogy, claims there isn’t much of a Sephardic presence in Puerto Rico: Spanish rule and the Inquisition discouraged all but a few … more

Mike Fink | 3/18/16

The tides and times of summer

I’ve been trying to collect a few fine moments from this summer – with the pleasant prospect that August may add to my treasures. We spent an early June weekend in Chatham, on Cape … more

Mike Fink | 8/5/21

From humor to Jewish connections and back again

The timing was perfect: daylight saving time ended, giving us back a lost hour. I went to Columbus, Ohio, to visit the homestead of my favorite American humorist, James Thurber. My freshman roommate at Yale had handed me … more

Mike Fink | 11/27/15

A proud memory of the American Dream

Just a story set in 1951, the start of the “Fabulous 50s,” after World War II and its aftermath. We were deeply involved in the “Cold War” against our former … more

Mike Fink | 12/9/16

There’s more to Columbus than meets the eye

Did you know that a pigeon is a dove and that the word “columbus” means just that in Latin, the bird that makes a cooing, melancholy melody over all the continents and builds … more

Mike Fink | 10/2/20

The delights of a single spring bloom

In my school days, we had to learn poems by heart and then recite them by rote on the auditorium stage.  I remember Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ode to the month of May, “The … more

Mike Fink | 5/9/21

The blurred souvenirs of memory

He sat by the burning logs in the open hearth of our parlor, in a wing chair. I think it was upholstered in patterned peach silk. This is the only memory I have of my maternal grandfather. He had paid this brief visit from Montreal when I was ... … more

Mike Fink | 3/13/14

Two May holidays that are near and dear to my heart

I had two uncles who fought for the four freedoms, and I think about them on Memorial Day. One of them, the younger, was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and came home on crutches. The other, … more

Mike Fink | 5/4/23