In these thir­ty short sto­ries, we have thir­ty sliv­ers of life as lived by William D. Kauf­man over the bet­ter part of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Writ­ten from a desk in the lounge of the assist­ed-liv­ing cen­ter in which Kauf­man cur­rent­ly resides, the author has made his time and place in the world sing and dance its way to life. The sto­ries are semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, many of them set dur­ing his child­hood, but the imme­di­a­cy and inti­ma­cy of the writ­ing make the events feel as if they are occur­ring as the read­er turns the page. Evoca­tive of an era, one can taste the fla­vors, smell the scents and see the sights that Kauf­man describes; all this is pre­sent­ed with an econ­o­my of lan­guage and a tal­ent for find­ing the per­fect phrase at the per­fect time. The author start­ed writ­ing in his nineties and his look back at the past is mel­low, for­giv­ing, and filled with humor. We see the day World War I end­ed through his lon­ga­go child’s eyes; his big sister’s reac­tions are more impor­tant than the day’s grand events. We expe­ri­ence his first day of ched­er, his first cig­a­rette, and his immi­grant mother’s encounter with a big­ot­ed pub­lic school teacher (as well as the mother’s ulti­mate sub­tle but bril­liant vic­to­ry!). We are there for his induc­tion into the Army at the start of World War II and his return to Italy many years after hav­ing been sta­tioned there. And we hear about his present life as a res­i­dent in an assist­ed-liv­ing facil­i­ty where he has allowed his cre­ativ­i­ty to blos­som and flour­ish for the ben­e­fit of us all. In a mod­est and unas­sum­ing style, Kauf­man enter­tains and enlight­ens us. This book is a gem.