Feature Stories
People have come into my office having heart attacks. But after Masako walked out our front door, I felt more helpless and frightened than at any other time during my four and a half years …
Midsummer nights, I not infrequently put myself to sleep considering the taste of a warm, ripe apricot. I imagine the apricot’s sunrise color, the red blush along its curve. I imagine the apricot’s heft in …
“There are more people in the service industry than anything else. Service jobs are always gonna be with us, whether it’s pumpin’ gas or shinin’ shoes or washin’ dishes, Hey, just take pride in it.”
"When they were first building these houses, we would go up the freeway and say, 'Who the hell would ever buy a house over there?’ and we ended up buying one," says Patty Williamson of …
In 1899, 5 million gallons of ice cream were sold in the United States; by 1909, 30 million gallons; by 1919, 150 million gallons. The most recent figures show that Americans annually eat 23 quarts.
“Not long ago, after a reading, a woman asked me to sign her bare breast. I think that she was looking for a strange secular blessing that readers feel has singled out the writer.”
My pig discovered glass today. He understood there was some insurmountable clear space he didn't understand, nor could he get through. Nothing more complicated than a sliding glass door to you and me, but to …
"In 1992, she got about $40,000, I think, for the renewal of the film rights for On the Road. She thought that with this money she could move to Key West. She loved the blue water there."
Some weeks in family practice have themes. This week's theme was colon cancer. Monday morning I went up to the sixth floor of the hospital to check on Viola. Now 86 years old, Viola is …
Deirdre and I went home to my parents' for Easter. I still find myself calling it "home," even though I have been living and working in San Diego for almost two years and married for …
9:41 p.m. Where are their faces? Friday night, and dozens of headless musclemen on video, strutting at some outdoor gay-pride event. Near-naked, their bronzed muscles stretched by steroids and molded by Nautilus machines, a cross …
One afternoon about four years ago, my brother John called me during office hours. I had finished my family practice residency about six months before and was just starting my own practice in Berkeley, California. …
They tell Manuel to bring the truck in. Instead of continuing up 805 to Mission Valley, we get off onto 94 east, take it to 125 north, then 8 east through El Cajon, and north on 67, back to Bud’s.
My wife left me while she still could. A ten-day visit with her family in Kansas City, to see her new nephew and to help a friend in need. Soon she will be too pregnant …
RUTH ANN, MY HOUSEMATE AND FELLOW SECOND-YEAR FAMILY PRACTICE RESIDENT, HAD TOLD ME VIRGINIA WASN’T DOING WELL WHEN SHE SIGNED OUT TO ME THAT AFTERNOON IN 1990. THAT EVENING, I GOT THE CALL FROM THE …
JUST A COUPLE MORE PUSHES AND CHERYL, A 31 -YEAR-OLD JAZZ DANCER, WOULD HAVE HER FIRST BABY. I MET HER THE DAY BEFORE WHEN SHE CAME TO OUR SERVICE AT MARY HITCHCOCK MEDICAL CENTER. SHE …