Conner Gorry's Page

Maybe it's me, but certain zingers people have sent my way 10, even 25 years ago I just can't shake (note 1). There was the time in elementary school when the Mean Girl said: 'ever wonder why you have no friends?' I responded: 'I have friends you don't even know about.' Pretty clever in my 10-year old estimation, but she didn't miss a beat. 'That's because they're imaginary.' Ouch.

Then, some years later, a different Mean Girl (yeah, I was the one everyone loved to pummel -…

It was Sunday and it seemed like the whole neighborhood was out getting their coffee and Times. When we entered the bagel store – a cubby hole joint so Jewish it’s closed on Saturdays – a scrum of hungry New Yorkers clustered around the display case of smears. They may have had sleep in their eyes, but these natives had sharp elbows; both safety and common courtesy required we not cut in front of anyone. But where was the front? Where was the “line?”

“We have to start…

The last time I planted tent poles, it was within pistol shot of the crumpled Presidential Palace, Port-au-Prince, March 2010. At 33 nights, it was the longest I’d spent in a tent. Given the wretched situation and endless cavalcade of sick and hungry Haitians seeking succor from the Cuban medical brigade I was…

'Going native' is a slow, oftentimes imperceptible process. You might not even notice the subtle adjustments - those natural-for-the-context changes that living in a foreign culture forces over time.…