Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 29, 2020 – Yesterday, for the 1,000th time over the past four years, I drove by the site where a policeman shot Philando Castile less than a half mile from my neighborhood—a quiet, leafy haven of white liberalism. My wife and I know a fair amount about Mr. Castile—our oldest son is close friends …
AUGUST 17, 2020 – As I kayak along the shoreline, I admire the big pine that were much smaller when my grandparents were alive. I reflect on all that has occurred in the world since they bought this property in the fall of 1939. World War II had just begun with Germany’s Blitzkreig against Poland. …
AUGUST 14, 2020 – In these fraught times, I find peace in things that will survive our troubles. Things like . . . trees, for example. Here at the Red Cabin, we’re surrounded by thousands of trees, but I’m determined to add thousands more pine—the species that dominated the landscape here for centuries before “progress” …
AUGUST 13, 2020 – Yesterday I left the Red Cabin late. I had a dental appointment back in Minneapolis, three hours away, and was cutting it close. A client’s early morning curveball had detained me. I’d need to follow up immediately after my teeth were cleaned. With ignition, the radio yanked me into the middle …
AUGUST 9, 2020 – Early on I was destined for Ayn Rand Land. One of my grandpas was “Ragnar,” the name of the hero-privateer in Rand’s best-seller, Atlas Shrugged. My other grandpa was a businessman. My dad was an arch-conservative, meaning my mom had to go along. Then the kicker: my oldest sister, an intellectual …
AUGUST 6, 2020 – After a two-week break from breaking news, I read many anxiety-enhancing articles in today’s paper version of . . . the paper. Our delivery person never lands The Times close to our doorstep. Instead, the person randomly flings the paper at our front yard, where “All the News That’s Fit to …
AUGUST 5, 2020 – While the rest of the world battled its way through another two days, my wife and I drove from Hamburg, Connecticut to Falcon Heights, Minnesota—1,345 miles, minus the mile to and from the highway and our overnight hotel. Total drive time: 21.5 hours inside total elapsed time of 45 hours. Such …
JULY 29, 2020 – He died long before our time, but my sisters and I knew very well, people who knew him very well. He was “George B. Holman,” our maternal great-grandfather. His entrepreneurial sweat and equity were in Rutherford, New Jersey, but his rest and recreation were in Lyme, Connecticut. Among his hobbies: gardening …
JULY 27, 2020 – Yesterday, I had to take care of some business at the Lyme Town Hall. Mistaking “Public Hall” for “Town Hall,” I thought I’d walk from Lyme Light, then around the corner and down Cove Road to the hamlet of Hamburg—population 23, plus the modest yacht club, Reynold’s general store, the Congregational …
JULY 15, 2020 – In the days after 9/11, America was united, right, wrong, or indifferent—except at the time, no one was indifferent. Flags flew high. Pride stood tall. We all were “in this together.” In fact, for a short, precious time, the world was united, as reflected by the French president’s famous quip, “We’re all Americans …
JULY 14, 2020 – I’m not talking here about delusions inside the Naked Emperor’s head, accepted or acquiesced in by his supporters and enablers. I’m thinking of books labeled and acknowledged as full-on fiction. Over decades, my desultory book-reading career has involved mostly non-fiction. “With so much to know about the non-fiction world,” I’d say, …
JULY 12, 2020 – When I was little, Dad bought a cheap chunk of farmland north of town and planted 10,000 pine seedlings. Later he bought a larger, cheaper piece of prairie in a neighboring county and planted 20,000 more. His idea was to raise Christmas trees to supplement his income as Clerk of Court …
JULY 11, 2020 – After a week at the Red Cabin I’m feeling safe from humanity. I rarely even skim “the news” and rely on my wife, who reads it, to inform me if the world has in fact gone over the ever-threatening proverbial falls. I must confess, however, that yesterday I glanced at headlines. …
JULY 7, 2020 – On our way to the Red Cabin, we pass through the trim town of Cumberland, Wisconsin, population 2,170. Mom-and-pop stores line Main Street, the sole commercial street in town. At the economic center of town is an old 3M plant across from the high school football field. The most remarkable feature …
JULY 3, 2020 – On this cusp of Independence Day, I feel no shame in being American; no more shame than I’d feel imprisoned in a zoo of odd creatures, from a sloth to a turtle to a peacock to a lion to a wolf to a (breast-beating gorilla) to a playful porpoise to an …
JUNE 27, 2020 – The more our world seems to descend into chaos, the more I descend into . . . a study of history. Currently I’m still working with the Renaissance, but that period keeps pulling me back to the Middle Ages and pushing me forward into the Reformation. No matter where I land, …
JUNE 26, 2020 – I have four nieces who are stand-outs. One is also a stand-up—Erica Rhodes, comedienne-extraordinaire. Based in L.A., she’s performing this week—live and via Zoom—at the Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis. In her routine she pokes fun at uncertainties about Covid-19, saying, “No one knows anything anymore!” Her comedic statement reminds me …
JUNE 19, 2020 – “This is where they died,” said Tom. I knew immediately his reference . . * * * Between classes one morning barely a month into my freshman year of college nearly four years before, I checked my mailbox in the basement of the Moulton Union. There I found a letter from …
JUNE 18, 2020 – (Cont.) – Among the “rascals” was Tom, a middle school classmate of mine whom I hadn’t seen since I’d been sent to boarding school eight years before. We hadn’t been particularly close friends, but we’d been together in band (Tom on trumpet; I on drums) and track (he, the sprinter; I, …
JUNE 17, 2020 – On our drive yesterday in the full splendor of early summer, we passed a column of dump trucks lumbering in the opposite lane toward a road construction zone behind us. The trucks reminded me of the summer when I drove one. I was between college and law school and looking for …
JUNE 15, 2020 – At the Red Cabin we have a TV but only for watching movies the old-fashioned way—via DVDs. But soon after my wife bought a large antique cabinet with doors and mounted the TV inside, we got used to the cabinet and forgot all about the TV. A year ago, though, we …
JUNE 14, 2020 – Well, I’d had what I thought were big ideas. Yesterday, my wife and I drove up to The Red Cabin for a few days of respite from the world as it is being depicted these troubling times. Some awful stuff. In the rush to get out of town, we forgot to …
JUNE 13, 2020 – Covid-19 and the murder of George Floyd, Jr. remind us again that we can’t handle more than two big stories at once. (The economy and the November election are sub-stories of the two main stories.) Actually, one big story: Covid-19 is hanging in there by the string of a face mask …
JUNE 12, 2020 – I’m grateful for my Trump-supporting clients. They bring out the better angels of my nature, and perhaps this rapport models how our nation might avoid wholesale rupture. There is no magic to my conversations; no special formula, no complicated blueprint. Just two things: 1. Money; and 2. Mutual respect. First, the …
JUNE 10, 2020 – . . . young kids will still ask long before the halfway mark of a long road-trip. Likewise, two weeks into the post-George Floyd, Jr. era, we white-liberals behind the wheel can’t help but ask the same: “Are we there yet” in ending our nation’s legacy of discrimination? It’s the inevitable …