My First Book Club Event in Briar Chapel
After writing more or less seriously for several years, I am fascinated by a question: ‘why people write?’ I know why I started. My father already died, and my mother was getting older. They both went through hell in their lives together. Father didn’t talk much, but mother was a bottomless well of stories. And […]
The Largest Military Effort by Resistance Forces During WWII
Seventy-two years ago, on September 1st, Warsaw exploded. Two, may be three generations past. How many people still remember it? How many of them, who saw it with their own eyes, are still alive? And when our city erupted, there were only few not afflicted by these events. The Biblical scene of David fighting Goliath […]
Anger in the operating room
This scene looks familiar to most people who ever worked in the operating room. A high-power doctor, say a cardiac surgeon, is doing a long and complicated case. The stakes are high, the chances for complications significant, and he dreads any mistakes. Everybody in the room senses a tense situation, and all people walk on […]
Story behind the picture
There are no colleges in Poland. In our last year of high school, we had to decide where to continue our education. To help us make a conscious choice, our beloved Latin, French and an ancient history teacher, Mrs. Libera invited several of her graduated students to talk to us about professions they chose. To […]
Getting Out a Good Book Takes Much Longer Than to Read It
“You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” Arthur Plotnik Not many authors write readily publishable first drafts. For the rest, writing in essence is rewriting, and that’s an entirely different process. Some authors can do their […]
The Best Father’s Day Present Ever.
During my years in California, while in a private practice of cardiovascular surgery, I was elected the president of the local chapter of the American Heart Association. During one of the meetings, a late middle-aged woman came to me and said, “I know you!” I said, “You do!” thinking of her telling me how good […]
The Year of the 21-year-old Goaltender
It’s not enough to say they are a different breed. They must be crazy to stay in the way of a piece of rubber traveling in your direction at the speed of light. They can hardly walk on a rubber mat leading to the rink, while they have to maneuver with a blistering accuracy in […]
The Ups and Downs of the Performer
Just imagine…. Imagine yourself in front of 18,000 people in a tightly packed arena. You have been waiting for this opportunity throughout your entire life. The moment you get in, crowds start screaming and rarely get quiet during your three-hours performance. Most of these people are friendly, but some are not. You are going to […]
Would You Have the Courage to Stop Treatment of the Advanced Cancer?
We’ve known each other for close to forty years. She was a good friend of mine and a former wife of my close buddy. I visited her in the delivery room after her son was born. Her marriage didn’t work out, and she ended up by herself. And then she found out, she had breast […]
