Jim Sollisch

Becoming a son again at 61, I learned that we are always learning, always unfinished: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS -- My uncle Ed finally died. He had been dying for several years, the losses so small he didn’t seem to notice them right away. On our weekly phone calls, which started during lockdown, I would take note of the subtractions. He…

Op-Ed: The list of foods banned during pregnancy is absurd. Humans are horrible at assessing risk

My daughter Zoey is pregnant. I had her over for brunch. I served fresh-squeezed OJ. And her favorite, lox and bagels with cream cheese. Stop me, if you’ve heard this one, but she politely told me that the lox was verboten, as was the fresh-squeezed…

After the vicissitudes of winter, Clevelanders savor that first March day that smells of spring: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND -- If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where winter is long and dark and gray, like it is here, there is a day in March every year when the sun warms just enough to make you stop and breathe, and you realize you’ve been holding your…

Everything I needed to know about life, I learned from basketball. Now, I'm saying goodbye.

The muscle memory from my 10,000 hours on playgrounds, driveways and gyms shaped who I am, at 63 years old, more than anything else in my life. Opinion contributor Basketball was the first thing I was any good at. And the first thing I really wanted…

Don't fall for the allure of dying leaves. A new season means extra work, aggravation.

Opinion contributor I won’t be going to Vermont this fall. Or any fall. I wouldn’t go any place where I might be called a “peeper.” Yet 3.5 million people go to Vermont every fall to look at dying leaves. That’s about six tourists for every resident.…

Time to flip the switch on COVID-19 vaccine messaging: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- If we want people who are hesitant about the vaccine to get vaccinated (1 in 3 Americans are still saying they won’t get it), we have to stop telling everyone that once you get the vaccine, you should continue to take all…

The Shocking Truth About Jews in Sports by Jim Sollisch

*Featured Image: Young Men’s Hebrew Association barbell class, San Francisco, 1902. (Magnes Collection of Jewish Art, University of California, Berkeley) When I was 10, I learned a shocking truth. Joe Namath was not Jewish. Not that I thought of Joe…

The solace of the same old - from the bedroom to the breakfast room: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Pandemics are better if you’re a monogamist. Monogamy is the practice of finding joy in sameness. It’s about iteration, not variety. I am a monogamist. I haven’t just had the same sexual partner for the past quarter…

Eight minutes, 46 seconds. Think about what that was like, as fear turned to panic, to anger, and the last breath was pressed from your body: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Every eight minutes and 46 seconds, 52 babies are born in America. Forty-four people die. And life churns on. Two hundred and twenty-five million people around the world press “like” on Facebook and 472 couples get married.…

Uncle Ed’s music for a coronavirus-scarred world: Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- When my Uncle Ed turned 80, we all remarked that he seemed like 60. Now that he’s turned 90, it appears he’s caught up with himself. His voice has become shaky and thinner. He had himself on lockdown before the rest of the…

You should go to the grocery store every day. Several of them. Seriously.

I go to three or four grocery stores a day, almost every day. On Saturdays, it’s not unusual for me to go to five or six (and to stop by the farmers market). I am not a candidate to join the estimated 93 million Americans who bought groceries online…

What happens when we forget everything and have to ask Alexa to show us how to cook an egg? Jim Sollisch

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- If the internet is down, who among us can poach an egg, tie a tie, change a tire? So many pesky analog tasks have become too difficult without a YouTube video cued up. The Millennials have a word for these tasks: adulting.…

Who’s Afraid of Hurricane Dolly?

This year’s hurricane season is predicted to be a normal one. You don’t have to be a weatherman to make one forecast: There will be mandatory evacuation orders that tens of thousands of people will ignore. It happens every year. I am fascinated by…

I Taught My Son How to Be a Man. I Should Have Taught Him How to Be a Father.

When someone brings a baby into our office to visit, women, young and old, pour out of every conference room and cubicle to surround the little thing They coo at her; they beg to hold her; they crave her. I hide behind my laptop or hurry off to a…

Chill out, millennial parents. You’re doing fine.

Part of the human condition is to believe in a more perfect place called the past. We are nostalgic creatures, convinced America was a safer place in the 1960s even though the statistics argue otherwise. We’re sure people were more civil, despite all…

Message to a millennial: You don’t need my permission to marry my daughter: Jim Sollisch (Opinion)

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- I like being asked for my permission. For example, if you want to republish this essay, please ask my permission. If you want to borrow my leaf blower, definitely ask my permission. But if you want to marry one of my…

The Particular Joy of Being a Grandparent

I never thought I could hold a baby for an hour — my head a few inches from hers, hanging on every sigh, waiting intently for the next scrunch of her lips or arch of her barely visible eyebrows — perfectly happy, an idiot entranced by a magic trick.…

Of the many ways of reading a book, savoring the words out loud has them all beat: Jim Sollisch (Opinion)

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- I was ransacking a bookcase the other day, looking for something to read when I came across a novel by Bernard Malamud called "Dubin's Lives," purchased in 1981 in the summer between my first and second year of graduate…

Piano Lessons: Do Writers Need a Teacher or a Coach?

On the day my son Max discovered his superpower, Raffi was singing “Big Beautiful Planet” on the car stereo as the two of us tooled around town doing errands while leaves fell like giant confetti from the sky. Max ran into the house ahead of me, and…

My love story begins with a book, but what a book - with God as a character, and Rique as guide: Jim Sollisch (Opinion)

NEW! By Guest Columnist/cleveland.com CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- English majors fall in love in all the same ways as their more pragmatic peers who major in business or, say, mechanical engineering. With one notable exception. Books often play a…