Mike Pilewski writes about life, politics and culture in the United States
I was one of two kids at my school who entered the first grade already knowing how to read. When the teachers realized this, they excused me from reading class and allowed me to spend that hour in the library. Before long, I discovered one of its greatest treasures: a thin pictorial volume about the solar system. Each double page … >>
My German friends are often amazed when I tell them I’ve been to their home town — whether it’s Darmstadt, Bremerhaven, Görlitz or any of dozens of smaller places. Many of them have traveled around the world without ever having explored much of their own country. I wasn’t any different when I was growing up. The world I knew was … >>
I almost didn’t go inside. From what I could see, every table in the restaurant was taken. This was bad news for someone about to catch an international flight. This place in the departures area was my only chance to eat real food, but it was packed like a suitcase. I’d be lucky even to sit at the bar, I … >>
I’ve often complained about the Philadelphia airport. It was designed for air travelers of a different age, and for far fewer of them — maybe a third of the people who use it now. The path that an international traveler must take to get from customs to security, then to the gate, is labyrinthine and poorly ventilated. Lines were long, … >>
It takes only 30 minutes to fly from Flagstaff to Phoenix, Arizona; but 30 minutes can be enough to change your life. The propellers hadn’t yet begun to spin as the flight attendant, who resembled Hugo Chávez, gave his safety speech. “If you are seated in an exit row…” he said, his words becoming drowned in static. “If you are … >>
My eight-year-old cousin Trevor wrote to me recently from Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania, to ask for my help with a school project. Dear Michael, We are working on a Flat Stanley project. Stanley is a character in our book, Flat Stanley. He was flattened when a big bulletin board fell on him while he was in bed sleeping. In the book, … >>
Every little girl wants to be a princess — and my five-year-old niece is no exception. If she had her way (which she often does), she’d wear a fancy dress and a tiara every day. It goes without saying that she’d always be the center of attention. There’s something deep in the female psyche that responds to fairy tales — … >>
Everyone in America loves this weekend, and everyone dreads it. To us, Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November) is the biggest family holiday there is. Christmas is for the nuclear family, but Thanksgiving is for the extended family, from Grandma and Grandpa on down through the aunts and uncles to the children who have to sit at an extra table … >>
Do you know the difference between nationality and citizenship? A lot of people use these words to mean the same thing — but they don’t. The word “citizen” comes to us from Latin civitas, meaning “city”. The French took that word centuries ago and made the word citeain — someone who lives in a city. Today, a citizen is a … >>
How lucky we are when our problems are trivial! Flying to Istanbul on Christmas Day, my only complaint was that Turkish Airlines had seated me next to a large, burly man instead of a lovely Czech supermodel. Had I instead been flying to Detroit that same day, I would have come close to being blown up. It was only a … >>