“I grew up in Wantagh, not Montauk,” This was usually met with a blank look, and I would quickly add, “Wantagh, it’s near Jones Beach.” Maybe there’d be a brief acknowledgement, but inevitably the conversation shifted to something else because in the eyes of many, Wantagh doesn’t quite have the star power of Montauk. My hometown may…

This is a short piece with some of the characters in the novel Swimming to Jerusalem five years later. In that context it is best understood by those that have read the book.

The ‘Ur-Bornstein’ Nathan was the first and the original Bornstein in the New World.  With the exception of a few sepia photos and an old postcard there are few artifacts from his past. All I have are some stories and whatever I’ve conjured up based on them. I have often wondered what went through the…

Mrs. Parker’s Greeting I once read that when Dorothy Parker picked up the telephone or opened the front door her greeting was “What fresh hell is this?”  That goes through my mind each morning when I open up the door and pick up the New York Times (I am still old school and like to…

When I started this blog in 2014 I focused on my first swim trip to China.  Since then it has meandered into other topics.  This entry is back its original roots – my recent journey to Lake Bled, Slovenia for the International Winter Swimming Championships. The Swedish-American Winter Swimming League My 2015 trip to China…

In the little shetl I grew up in on the south shore of Long Island, diversity  meant there were Jewish families from Flatbush, Jewish families from Midwood, Jewish families from Brighton Beach and for a touch of exotica, a sprinkling of Jewish families from the Bronx (which most Brooklyn Jews considered ‘upstate’).  Needless to say…