“Why aren’t you in class or on the courts?” asked a guest, rustling the calm of the sun-soaked corridor of Total Tennis (TT), a summer camp for teen women. “The campanile bell rang at 6:00 a.m.” “Yes, ma’am,” replied Marina, a 19-year-old counselor-in-training. “Monday through Saturday, before breakfast, we’re all supposed to take a workshop. Yesterday mine was Better Backhand. Today it’s Kinesiology.” The student could explain Kinesiology to this new lady but decided not to since she had a …
Category: Stories
“1992” * Fiction * DC Diamondopolous
A black cloud of smoke near the intersection of Florence and Normandie drifted toward Mrs. Kim’s California Dry Cleaning store in South Central Los Angeles. She turned the sign to closed and locked the door. Her husband phoned telling her to come home. The jury had acquitted the four white police officers accused of beating Rodney King. Trouble had begun. She’d seen the video of the policemen clubbing the man when he was down. Didn’t seem right. The Kims, in …
“Big Stink in a Little Crepe Shop” * Memoir Excerpt * Elizabeth Sammons
The same way we say “Ah, Shucks!” Russians mutter “Da, Blin!” (Literally, “Yes, crepe.”) I gained insight into this phrase on a mild April evening, when I also discovered how our US cultural expectations sometimes rendered ordinary tasks like ordering dinner somewhat less than forthright. This excerpt comes from “American on Display,” the journal I kept on my first trip to the USSR in 1990 as a bilingual guide on Design USA, a cultural exchange exhibit of American life to …
Read More "“Big Stink in a Little Crepe Shop” * Memoir Excerpt * Elizabeth Sammons"