I appreciated every page of your June 2024 issue, from the Firecracker softball player on the front cover [photograph by Andy Hann] to Hayden Saunier’s poem “The Wisdom Package” on the back.
In 2022 I retired early to provide care and support for my ninety-one-year-old mother, who is living with dementia. My mom knows who I am, but sometimes she must search to find my name. There have been countless times when, like Stella in Sybil Smith’s short story “Charity,” my mother has said that she is tired of being alive and can’t understand why she is still here.
For the first year I cared for her, I wanted to ask, Who are you, and what have you done with my mother? Michael Mark’s poem “My Mother’s Disease Introduces Me to My Mother” helped me see that I must love both the mother I knew and the woman before me now.
Becky Mandelbaum’s essay “Gift Shops of the American Wild” [June 2024] reminded me of the summer my best friend, Angela, and I signed up to work in Glacier National Park. Angela worked in the gift shop, and I worked the front desk at Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. Mandelbaum’s descriptions were right on, from the employee drama and summer love to the parties and mysterious older workers.
I had a crush on Scott from Seattle, and I jumped at the opportunity to head off to Calgary with him for a few days, even though Angela liked him too. I felt guilty for betraying her and considered it karma when my car was thoroughly searched coming back across the Canadian border.
Angela didn’t speak to me for three days after we returned, but then I found a bouquet of wildflowers on my bed after I finished work one day, and I knew we could move on.
My old friend died suddenly a few years ago. Reading Mandelbaum’s essay felt like reliving that summer with Angela.
During her college years my daughter spent several summers working seasonal park- and forest-service positions. I gained some new insight into her experience thanks to Becky Mandelbaum’s essay, which I read from start to finish without once being tempted to let my attention wander—my own personal standard for a perfect piece of writing.
Regarding the look on the softball pitcher’s face on the cover of your June 2024 issue: if I were at bat, I wouldn’t crowd the plate!
I’ve been a subscriber for twenty-five years, and while I generally appreciate each issue, your June 2024 issue hit the ball out of the park.
The June 2024 cover photo brought back the years my daughter played fast-pitch softball. I kept score for her team, sitting in the scorekeeper’s box directly above home plate. With each incoming pitch the team’s catcher, a gritty young woman with the toughness of Thurman Munson, tucked her ungloved hand behind her back, out of harm’s way. I distinctly remember her red-painted fingernails, the chipped polish.
John Vurro’s essay “Guardians” [June 2024] pulled me into the joys, mysteries, and frustrations of parenting an autistic child. A system that requires parents to deem their adult child incompetent in order to care for him is cruel. May Vurro and his family continue to find the strength to face the many challenges of our not-always-inclusive society.
I started reading “Guardians” past my bedtime, but I couldn’t put it down. It provoked an amalgam of emotions and was a reminder that the troubles I’ve encountered on my own path have been almost entirely insignificant. Such writing might be found elsewhere, I suppose, but thank God it is in The Sun.
I was touched by John Vurro’s essay about his autistic son. The stimming, hand-flapping, compulsive routines, and inability to express himself reminded me of my disabled brother, who is now seventy-six. Our father handled all the paperwork and dealings with the regional center, county, and state, but he never attempted to obtain guardianship. I remember the strained sadness in his voice when he said my brother would have to become a “ward of the state.”
Dad worked with the local parents’ association to help establish the first of several group homes. Since his fifties, my brother and his roommate have lived “independently” in a HUD house with staff to help them 24/7.
Vurro’s son may not have what we consider to be a normal life, but he clearly has parents who love him.
“Two Guys Walk into a Bar” [Finn Cohen’s interview with Kliph Nesteroff, May 2024] reminded me of an experience I had in Los Angeles in 1999: I showed up at a theater to see Margaret Cho perform. She spoke about her vulnerabilities and the body-shaming she had encountered. She told us that, after being cast in a TV sitcom, she’d tried to conform to expectations by rapidly losing weight, endangering her health. Here was a comedian who didn’t have to put down others to get a laugh.
Cho went on to describe how a male executive had expected her to have sex with him to get a job. She described in detail how ugly the man was. The theater was packed with women. Most were laughing. I was seated next to one of the few men there. As Cho spoke, I watched the man sink into his seat. It seemed that her words were getting to him. That’s when I realized that almost all comedy routines put down some “other” group.
As disappointed as I was, I still look back fondly on one part of the night: when the audience had entered the theater, Cho herself had taken our tickets. I hadn’t recognized her! That simple gesture was absurd in a way that tickles me.
I disagree with Kliph Nesteroff’s assessment that a “comedian’s only responsibility is to make the audience laugh.” By the same logic, if you’re a hedge-fund manager, your only responsibility is to make money, externalities be damned.
Donald Trump draws laughs by demeaning and threatening his list of lesser-thans. I laughed at some jokes about gay people and immigrants when I was a kid. Although humor doesn’t have to be moralizing or self-important, I think it does need to come from somewhere honest and humane. Nesteroff made this point himself when he discussed how Dave Chappelle’s comedy used to be “very humble.” What Nesteroff seemed to see in Chappelle recently, and what I’ve seen in Trump for a while, is the sad art of making fun of someone else without pausing to check out the smug chump in the mirror. Funny or not, that sort of humor is not worth my time.
Was it just me, or did Kliph Nesteroff seem annoyed at almost every question Finn Cohen asked?
What bothered me, though, was when Nesteroff commented about how unfortunate it is that so much talk about Dave Chappelle drowns out conversations about the good things other people in comedy are doing. I wanted to know: Who are those people, and what good things are they doing? Instead Cohen’s follow-up question was about Chappelle, as if he hadn’t heard what Nesteroff had just said.
I was moved by Kate Osterloh’s tale of worship and rebellion, “The Bleeding Woman” [March 2024]. A biblical story rich with the voices of women and girls! A story where a miracle appears impermanent! I loved it. Who is this Kate Osterloh? I’m intrigued by her perspective and power.
Michael Bazzett’s poem “I Will Leave” [December 2023] was frank and thrilling. What word craft! What imagery!
