Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
APRIL 3, 2020 – Social distancing now being imperative, I recall my encounter with its polar opposite. Thirty-nine years ago, in my callow youth, I saw fit to see India—alone, or so I thought. Naïveté, I soon learned, is an essential human trait—without it, wholly insane but totally wonderful things in life would never occur. …
JANUARY 17, 2020 – Undaunted, he worked doggedly for admission into another Polish university, less selective than Jagiellonian University, but nonetheless, boasting a top-flight history department. He labored under the tutelage of a legendary scholar/professor, and then made a second attempt at Jagiellonian University. He passed. (In a “small world” aside, my wife and I …
JANUARY 7, 2020 – We have good friends who are skiing beside the Matterhorn outside Zermatt, Switzerland. I’m envious, but I can’t begrudge good taste combined with good fortune. Sunday, I thought about our friends as I hiked to my own version of Switzerland and the Matterhorn. It was a rough go. Our alley was …
DECEMBER 17, 2019 – On Sunday evening I watched David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago. I’ve lost track, but it might have been the 12th time I’ve enjoyed the 1965 epic film directed by David Lean. It went on to become one of the biggest box office hits ever. For those who read my “thumbs up” review …
DECEMBER 6, 2019 – A thousand years ago, or so it seems, I landed in what was then known as Bombay, India. I’d flown from Australia, where I’d been on the loose for the previous month, after the month before in New Zealand. Many of the European travelers I’d met “Down Under” had come via …
NOVEMBER 7, 2019 – I’m lucky to have traveled round the globe, literally, crisscrossing oceans, continents, the equator, the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Cancer, the Tropic of Capricorn. Whenever possible I’ve looked out the window of car, train, ship, and plane. On foot, bike or skis, I’ve peered as far and wide as I …
OCTOBER 4, 2019 – TRAVELED NORTH FROM THE RED CABIN PARENTHESIS WHICH IS ALREADY NORTH COMMA BUT EVERYTHING IS DIRECTIONALLY RELATIVE PARENTHESIS STOP DROVE THROUGH ELK COUNTRY AND DOWN MANY TWISTING GRAVEL ROADS THROUGH VAST CHEQUAMEGON NATIONAL FOREST STOP DESPITE LOW CLOUDS, MIST AND RAIN WE HIKED SOME STOP OUR REWARD ON ONE TREK WAS A …
SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 – At 10:18 I zipped out the door and onto the elevator. Remembering I’d not brushed my teeth, I fished the last piece of peppermint gum from my briefcase. As the doors opened on the fifth floor, I just about mowed down a waiting passenger. She screamed. I apologized. On the ground …
SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 – A fortnight ago I’d bought online a NYC-Boston Amtrak ticket. The objective: to visit my sister Kristina and her husband, Dean. I’d received confirmation but hadn’t given it another look until . . . precisely 10:11 yesterday morning. A week before I’d made flight arrangements—Minneapolis/St. Paul to LaGuardia—with the return flight …
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019 – One view of humankind is that we’re a bunch of incompetent dolts. Another view is that we’re just the opposite. You might say, we’re like LaGuardia Airport. It can be your worst nightmare or, against, the odds, everything can turn out just fine. When my younger sister, Jenny, flew to LaGuardia …
AUGUST 18, 2019 – Friday we picked up travelers from overseas flights—extended family and friends from France and Portugal. Our dual-national daughter-in-law Mylène had arrived Thursday from New York; our son Byron and his birth mother, Sang Hee, fly in next Tuesday. After clearing customs and baggage claim with extraordinary ease (our guests remarked how friendly …
AUGUST 13, 2019 – “Doc” Andberg, our town vet and family friend, ran his first marathon a few years after B.C.E. 490 when Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens. I thought Doc was too old to be doing such a thing. He was older than my dad, for Pete’s sake. However, one day on the golf …
JULY 13, 2019 – As an early post disclosed, in October 1981 I took a ride on the railroad—the Trans-Siberian—both ways. During the journeys, I drank lots of tea dispensed from the samovar at the end of the carriage. The attendant poured the tea into a tea glass in a commemorative (70 years of Communism), …
JULY 8, 2019 – From August 28 to September 13, 1981 my travels led to Poland. For a year that country had been in the news—Solidarność, the illegal workers union, had started a revolution against the Communist regime, and the world watched nervously to see how the Soviet Union would react. Would it invade and …
JULY 5, 2019 – Intrigued by Portugal during last year’s sojourn, my wife and I decided to explore more of the country after our son’s wedding there two weeks ago. Last year, our son and his now bride did all the planning, driving and navigation; managed every detail. This year we relied solely on our …
JULY 3, 2019 – In an instant the work of many hands turned into a magical scene. Script, setting, players—all fell into perfect place. An invisible hand directed the action into images indelibly written into our memories. We would share a bond among themselves as with no other people. Framing our memories were a late …
JULY 2, 2019 – Yesterday my wife and I returned from a 12-day sojourn in Portugal. It was an expanded version of our visit there a year ago. Last year the main objective was to meet our younger son’s future in-laws, António and Marie-Helena. This year the central purpose was the ceremony that would make …
JUNE 18, 2019 – Today my wife and I are bound for “Cortiços” (pronounced, “cor-TEE-sōsh”), a magical place unknown to us until a year ago. It is a village whose population matches its years—400. It lies amidst the olive orchards of Trás-os-Montes (“behind the mountains”) in the extreme northeast part of Portugal. What takes us …
JUNE 4, 2019 – Yesterday I yelled at four people—two by phone, two in person. I don’t mean “yell” yelled, but I was pretty steamed. In each case of “yelling,” two thoughts occurred to me: 1. I’m becoming a curmudgeon; and 2. The targeted person was probably less than half my age. (That would mean born …
MAY 21, 2019 – Prejudice—I’m as guilty of it as is the next person. One of my best examples occurred aboard an overnight train from Lyon to Paris. The train had originated in Rome and pulled into Lyon well past midnight. My reservation was for a second-class compartment already occupied by three other men about …
APRIL 27, 2019 – Last night I pulled from the shelf a small volume of short stories by Nikolai Gogol, translated into English. Inside the front cover I’d written, “Purchased in Moscow – October 3, 1981.” That was the day before the start of my seven-day rail journey across Russia—and seven days back—with layovers in …