This series of essays is only just underway and I don't want to spend a great deal of time explaining what it's all about. One thing it's not, is a personal blog about all the particular nooks, niches and crannies that occupy one's day. While it may be true that the joys and discoveries at any moment of a routine day can excite someone to write deep and endlessly fascinating depictions: having seen more than twenty-five thousand such days, I'm aiming for something more ambitious than that. There are a few markers I want to leave. Hopefully show my children and grandchildren ─ when they are older─ I was looking out for their future. Somehow I feel profoundly bound to them. And I pray the warmth of this love continues on: to all the generations they issue.

About my name:

Mack Emsellem

I've got a sobriquet and a slogan for a name.

In my time Mack was the moniker for the proverbial cabby, the one who knew the real life low down about everything a visiting reporters or columnist needed to know: the plain-spoken stories on how real working people lived. That's Mack for you.

And a chant like, "You sell `em.  I sell `em.  Emsellem."  echoes a street vender calling out "I've got what you need and I'm ready to deliver"

At least that's the take on my name in the new world.

In the old country Mack is the sobriquet for Mackhlouf, a mystical physician/chemist; and the slogan comes out as "Am sæll-em" and translate to '"person of peace".

So you probably can guess I'm happy to be me and proud of my origins.

Independence Day

This 4th has got me feeling all warm and fuzzy about my citizenship. We really do have an all-time great country. Sure, I'm cynical and suspicious about business, politics and such. And, I'm not a nationalist. The people I have taught enriched my life and change my perspective. I'm primarily a citizen of the world.  But this place continues to be what my father always said: "The best country in the world." He wasn't just spouting a slogan. He knew something about the world he was talking about.

When he was a kid, he saw the very first auto in Fez; puttering along the dusty streets: alongside carts pulled by people or donkeys: as well as women balancing food baskets or huge loads of sticks or harvest grains piled high on their heads. What a scene!

His young world was wedged into a colonial social order, class and extreme economic disparities and periodic outburst of communal strife. And, because of his father, he saw it from the perspective of a privileged Moroccan Jew. And his friends came up to his house to listen to his phonograph playing American dance music. 

Modernism was making its first inroads into societies with entrenched attitudes, Europe was a little ahead: but not really by much. He arrive here in 1928. Even that bad timing didn't hold him back from his great adventure. The America he came to was still new and full of dynamism. When the money he brought  ran out life got hard. He constantly had to find work and  send money to his aged father.  Lucky for us, he was never swept into the depression's despair. He just kept going. And our family has been riding high ever since.

More than any other country in this world, the people who come here believe in striving for a better life. Each of them and  their families concentrates on bettering their own place. Nevertheless, they know it will be achieved by consent in our common purpose. And they also know we will only improve the conditions for our children's children by collective effort . We are stronger in that belief than almost any people anywhere in the world. Maybe a few of the most rapidly advancing nations in various regions can keep up with the strides we can make. They are not rivals. In fact we should seek out and commend societies that believe what their individuals members do makes a difference, There will come a time when we need to work together.

It gives me hope for the future. I can see the confluence of threats from environmental and population limits to the biosphere. But I also think the world can adapt and help biodiversity actually thrive. You know as well as me, this is still the country with the best hope to lead human destiny to such an outstanding alternative.