Jack Spatafora

Maybe you've noticed it too--those outdoor decoration lights that are already strung up on some rooftops and balconies. And although they're not all yet lighted, they stand smugly at the...

What's with today's wildfire spread of poker on television? Hours of airtime are melodramatically lavished on steely-eyed players studying cards, scanning opponents and pushing across little plastic formations of chips....

This is the time of year when gardeners start thinking about how to protect their plants from the ravages of approaching fall and winter. Special fertilizing. Irrigating. Mulching. But do...

There are many different ways to meditate and reasons why we meditate. There are also many different places to meditate. I recently chose the corner of Oak Street and Cambridge...

Our 4th of July celebrations will arrive in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and scope. The one thing, though, they will all share in common is: big!--as in a...

Father's Day is the day each year we honor our fathers. Fatherhood in America is often an inarticulate force in the lives of children that hides itself behind tight lips,...

I was looking out on my lilac bushes a few days ago. So full, so fragrant, so bursting with the flowers that traditionally explode every Mother's Day. If I were...

It's another Mother's Day. Mothers: What are we to make of this primordial member of our species? We begin with the obvious. Not everyone can be a mother. Or wishes...

I remember a stressed-out co-worker once telling me, "The only thing that holds me together is static cling!" He meant it as a joke, but as I recall his shaky...

I hate my neighbors. Well, not all of them, just the ones who transform every spring into a symphony of glorious green. I'm talking about their trees, shrubbery, plants and...