25 years later

I wish Dan were here, grumbling about AARP membership and needing reading glasses. I wish he could see his awesome sister grown up with a doctorate and a sweet son who loves music. I wish he could reminisce with me about the way our dads used to cook up geography competitions pitting us against each …

Visit our Year in Review!

Wondering what our family has been up to in 2023? Looking for movie recommendations from Charlotte or Rachel's annual list of five-star books? It's all in our Year in Review post! Oh, and don't miss Eric's ranking of his 23 favorite concerts of all time.

Our kitchen remodel

We worked with Rachel's brother this year on a major renovation of our kitchen, with substantial side projects in the adjacent living room and both bathrooms. The kitchen still had the original cabinetry from the late 1950s, and our earlier attempt to repaint the cabinet doors left us demoralized and determined to start fresh. We …

Visit our Year in Review

Check out our annual holiday letter plus Charlotte's favorite films of 2022, Rachel's book recommendations, Sophie's top five time-wasters and music musts from Eric. It's Year in Review time!

Recommendations for a lifetime of reading

When I graduated from high school, my mother made a special present for me. She wrote to our relatives, my former teachers and lots of people who had known me over the years and asked them for book recommendations. Then she presented me with a book of book lists as well as a small bookshelf …

Memories of Jan, posted in March 2022

March 3 My wonderful mother passed away late Wednesday of congestive heart failure. Jan was an original, a brilliant and creative person who loved poetry, root beer floats and classic movies. I can’t believe I’ll never be able to call her for advice or to brag about her grandchildren (the “baby geniuses,” she called them) …

Eulogy for Jan Dickler

Delivered by Rachel Coker on March 6, 2022 Thank you so much for surrounding our family with love during this challenging time. My mom was a nonconformist her whole life. She refused to do what was easy or conventional, which could be maddening but also inspiring to those around her. So many of us lead …

Jan Dickler, 1948-2022

April 19, 1948 - March 2, 2022 A librarian by day, a fiction and poetry reader by night, Jan Blake Dickler spent many of her 73 years surrounded by books. Her life story defied any easy classification. In the Dewey Decimal System, you might find it in the 700s (for the arts) or 296 (for Judaism). Here’s …

On the edge of something new

One day in late spring, our schedules seemed to go from zero back to something like their pre-pandemic level of work-and-swimming-and-trumpet-and-school-and-synagogue-and-meetings and, well, you get the idea. It feels like we're on the edge of something new, with all four of us vaccinated and Sophie about to graduate from high school! Check out our Year …

Eric’s 2021 Movie Battle Royale

Eligibility: Must be action hero with badassery. No superheroes allowed. No non-humans allowed. Bonus points in the seedings for those whose movies appear often on cable TV. Fights to the death can include weapons and must be on the higher seed’s “home field” unless the higher seed is a drifter who was born to walk …