Mary Novaria

This piece appeared March 12, 2014 in the Huffington Post. I was almost run over crossing the street the other day. Near misses happen in my busy neighborhood with alarming frequency, but this one came perilously close to flattening me -- closer even than the day a motorcycle drove right up onto the sidewalk. Despite the broad yellow stripes indicating a pedestrian crosswalk and the familiar, red, octagonal sign painted STOP, it was obvious the woman in the Mercedes SUV wasn't going to. When I halted in the middle of the street, she finally glanced my way and hit the brakes. "Oh, I didn't see you," she said, unremorsefully as she rolled down her window. "I was just looking straight ahead." (Didn't we learn in Driver's Ed to look both ways before proceeding into an intersection?) "You didn't even come to a complete stop," I scolded, with upturned palms. And that's when I heard the voice of a jogging stranger. "Aw...

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a couple of suburban kids raking leaves the other day. Were these kids being punished for bad report cards or an infraction of house rules? Here in the 'burbs, we just don't see that many kids doing yard work. We see a few dads, the occasional mom, and lawn services. I recalled a friend who jokingly called it “Johnson County child abuse” when she had two of her five children sharing the same bedroom. Did this leaf-raking task fall into that category, as well? What I really wanted to know was, How on earth did these parents inspire their progeny to rake? In our house, the offspring have always mysteriously disappeared or miraculously wanted to do their homework when there are dishes to be done, snow to be shoveled, leaves to be raked. We’ve actually paid one of our son's friends to do yard work for us. We have never been good at getting our children to do chores. It’s one of our failings as parents. When I was a kid—OMG, did I ju...

It was not always an easy ride for my dad and me. My mom used to say that one of her greatest accomplishments was getting me out of high school without my father killing me. I didn’t commit any felonies or cause bodily harm, but I’d sneak out with the car before I had my license, ditch gym class to stare at boys in the library, and generally not live into my potential as a scholar. On my last day of high school, I was busted with a group of friends for drinking beer in the ravine. My dad came to fatherhood somewhat late in the game. Papal dispensation in hand, he was 36 when he married my mother after sixteen years as a Marist brother. More than nine years younger, my mom was introduced to my dad at a Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day dance in Washington, DC. Dad married a nice Irish-Catholic girl and wound up the spouse of an Episcopal priest. Dad rarely spoke of his own father, save a handful of references to a notorious temper. I know far more (although still not enough) about h...