Memory

by David Benjamin “Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer./ That is what I’d truly like to be,/ ’Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer wiener,/ Everyone would be in love with me.”  ―The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song MADISON, Wis. — Every paycheck I got during my employment at the Waunakee Canning Company identified…

by David Benjamin “She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she’s collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.” …

by David Benjamin “… You can’t go back home to your family—to a young man’s dream of fame and glory, to the country cottage away from strife and conflict, to the father you have lost, to the old forms and systems of things which seemed everlasting but are changing all the time…”   —Thomas Wolfe…

by David Benjamin “… Strictly entre nous/ Darling, how are you?/ And how are all/ Those little dreams/ That never did come true?… ” — “Thanks for the Memory,”  Leo Robin & Ralph Rainger MADISON, Wis. — Lately, I’ve been trampling on my sister’s memories. Margaret Ann Benjamin, henceforth referred to as Peg, was a…

by David Benjamin “Once you have learned how to ask questions — relevant and appropriate and substantial questions—you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.” — Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner PARIS — There’s a persistent and popular prejudice, particularly in America,…

by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — Essayist Margaret Renkl recently recalled a question she posed to her great-grandmother about her great-grandfather, who had died some thirty years before. To Renkl’s surprise, great-grandmother barely remembered the man to whom she’d been married for three decades. She told Renkl, “It’s almost like it happened in a dream.”…