Ezra's Essays

Category: Local/New Jersey

  • THOUGHTS THAT OCCUR WHILE SHAVING | Third Series of Thoughts

    When we parted company at the end of Series 2 of these thoughts that appear while shaving, there was some consideration of my current hometown, Millburn-Short Hills, as a candidate to be wiped out because of wine and fornication. This of course, comes from the Biblical source of Revelations which described what happened to Babylon.…

  • OLD GEEZERS DYING IN BIG NUMBERS

    Saturday, May 29, 2004, was the day the long awaited World War II Memorial was to be dedicated. The broadcast was carried by most of the major television networks. On one station, we were told that World War II veterans were dying at the rate of 1000 to 1100 per day. Another station said the…

  • THE MCGREEVEY AFFAIR

    On Friday, Miss Chicka called my attention to an Internet report that James E. McGreevey, the Governor of New Jersey, had resigned and had announced he was a “gay American.” My retirement took place a long time ago, so what is being said around water coolers is now largely unknown to me. However, using my…

  • NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 10 – SHOW BIZNESS

    When I started out to write about life in New York, it seemed to me that four or five essays would do the trick. Admittedly, I never won a Rhodes Scholarship for my excellence in mathematics. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Part 10 of the New York series is now being prepared…

  • NEW YORK, NEW YORK PART 6 – L’AIGLON AND VOGA E VA | TWO GREAT ITALIAN ARTISTS

    In the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, there are two biblical injunctions or commands to “make a joyful noise.” If you are skilled at reading Roman numerals, you can look them up yourself to make sure that I know what I am talking about. One comes from Psalms, Chapter LXVI, verse one and…

  • MISTAKEN IDENTITY TIMES TWO

    During the late 1980s and the earlier part of the 1990s, my wife Judith and I rode on mountain bikes all over northern New Jersey. Our objective was to reach at least 100 miles per week. On most weeks, we met that objective. From time to time, we would stop to rest, usually in preparation…

  • MILLBURN AND TERRORISM | Everybody Has A Story

    Advancing age seems to have done considerable violence to my memory. From the time I started to school, it was my belief, which I thought was shared by all other Americans, that this was a nation of immigrants. As it turns out now, people who seek asylum in this country are more often regarded as…

  • IT’S ONLY THE FIRST INNING

    According to the Gregorian calendar, which I carry in my breast pocket at all times, in a few days I will have completed one year in the business of being blind. I had promised myself that I would take an assessment after one year of what the effects of being blind really meant. While I…

  • MAIL CALL

    This essay has an air of inevitability about it. If a pitcher stands on the mound and expectorates on the baseball, the batter should know that the next pitch will inevitably be a spitball which will start out at waist level and sink to his shoe-tops by the time it crosses the plate. There is…

  • “WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE: ME OR YOUR LYING EYES?” – Groucho Marx

    Nitpickers may say that Groucho should have used “Whom” instead of “Who,” but they are not writing this essay so the quotation stands as it is. The quotation is an apt one because my eyes last summer became AWOL permanently and now my eyes are often sending me imaginary visions of trees, water glasses, and…