by Howard Ahmanson

After doing his duty for the Navy in Washington D.C. during World War II, my father returned to Los Angeles, and my parents moved into the Talmadge Apartments between Western and Vermont. They’d been married for 17 years without having any children. So my father informally adopted his two nephews.

Around 1949, those nephews, who were students at UCLA, threw a party at the apartment. It was apparently a night to remember. The management decided to not renew my father’s lease. Shortly after that, my father’s wife announced, after nearly two decades of a childless marriage, that she was with child. (Full disclosure: that child was none other than this writer.) …

by Iain Padley

I pulled into Cairo on a train early Sunday morning. It was the start of the Egyptian work week, and I was running very late to class at the American University in Cairo. As I rushed across town I had a lot on my mind. I was concerned about the heavy traffic around Tahrir Square, and about haggling with the taxi driver on such little sleep. I was also nervous about my Arabic presentation at 10 a.m. and a test I was taking later in the afternoon.

I was not, however, worried about the general strike that would transform the country right before my eyes. …