Author Archives: drice
All the World’s a Screen…
I don’t get out much these days…I mean out of Ojai. I do leave the house each morning to hike the local trails with Doc, but most of my outings are to the local market or the local golf course, or to visit local friends…perhaps a Sunday walk at the lake or the beach. I … Continue reading
I am not Charlie
After mulling it over for awhile, I have concluded that I am not Charlie. Part of me, that part which is outraged at senseless killings and barbaric behavior, would like to get a t-shirt and stand with my friends in defense of free speech , but the part of me that raised children and taught … Continue reading
Words
I have learned to love words. When I was growing up, my parents always had a few copies of the Reader’s Digest stacked on an end table. They were conveniently stacked right next to the only heating vent, so they served as ready entertainment when we came in from the cold to warm up. (Well, … Continue reading
1/1/15
And in the embers of 2014 lies an old friend whom I can’t stop missing, a cousin who touched lives, a friend who lived life fully, My mother’s 100th birthday had she lasted, And a risky dance with Barcelona. All grist for the mill, dust in the corners of this room, Swept now, in this … Continue reading
Morning Assembly
The choice is always ours. Then, let me choose The longest art, the hard Promethian way Cherishingly to tend and feed and fan That inward fire, whose small, precarious flame, Kindled or quenched, creates The noble or ignoble men we are, The worlds we live in and the very fates, Our bright or muddy star. … Continue reading
1979….Beginning
The years ’79 and ’80 brought a remarkable group of students to the Happy Valley School: Jamie Grover, Ondine, Denlow, Phil Hayes, Ivan, Amee, Romy, David Forsyth, Gokhan , the Meek family, Colm, Sarah, and Caitriona, Jake and Marion Rupp…just to name a very few. There was also the arrival of some interesting new teachers: … Continue reading
Thom
/>My lifelong friend, Thom Nulty, passed away last night. He died in an airport. Boarding a plane. Fitting. In the mid-60s, after we had both gotten out of the service, Thom and I headed to Palm Springs to enjoy the annual ritual of Spring Break. We barely had enough money to gas up his corvette, … Continue reading
Promoting Moral Growth
It was the summer of 1985 and Cambridge, Mass., was muggy. I was living in an old Radcliffe dorm room, smaller than my first few cars. Single bed, small desk, and a giant fan which I pointed directly at the bed at night. I was there to work in a summer program under Lawrence Kohlberg, … Continue reading
Life is but a dream…
When I was in the 4th grade at St. Joan of Arc school, the Sister who taught me (her name long gone) wrote on my report card, “Dennis is a very bright young man, but he is a dreamer.” Both my parents and I would have felt a bit better about it if she had … Continue reading
Leaving HVS
The notice came on a Saturday morning, June 2004. “You have one week to vacate your office and one month to vacate your house.” After 27 years at Happy Valley School, my tenure as Director was to end. I was the only person ever to occupy that office, built in 1979. By the late … Continue reading