Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 24, 2024 – The other day while in conversation with our eight-year-old granddaughter about writing, she asked me how many diaries I had. “Lots,” I said. “Ten?” she asked, seeking greater precision from me. “More than that. If I had to guess, probably several dozen.” “You should count ’em,” she said. We then went …
MAY 23, 2024 – (Cont.) Menard’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot have become emporia selling everything a person needs to build a house and fill it wall-to-wall from the basement floor to the attic rafters, with all the props and fittings known to the Great American consumer. And every single item that fills one of these …
MAY 22, 2024 – These days you have to ask yourself—what is America? A crazy place? A terribly bad place? A wonderfully good place? A country about to push itself over the edge of a precipice? The most resilient nation on earth, still destined to be . . . dare I say it . . …
MAY 21, 2024 – (Cont.) The years passed. While I was in my second year of law school, Fred died at the age of 80. I was saddened by his passing; over the years I’d enjoyed many meaningful conversations with him. Ruth lived in the big house for a few years after Fred’s passing, then …
MAY 20, 2024 – (Cont.) Fred and Ruth had two small house dogs—a Corgi (I believe) named Bambi, and Chico, which, as you can tell from the name, was a Chihuahua—and three kids: Tom, Julie, and Sara. Tom was the oldest—way older than my oldest sister. He was well into grown-up status by the time …
MAY 19, 2024 – (Cont.) Fred was a successful businessman (See 1/3/24 post) who exuded intelligence and whose wry humor was always close to the surface. He liked to joke that everyone in town knew that our neighborhood was the poorest in Anoka because “We all lived on Rice.” While battling the city of Maplewood …
MAY 13, 2024 – To conclude series, The Neighbors, I now reminisce about the Moores, whose expansive river lot faced the Rathbuns’ house and our yard. Moore’s elegant home had been designed by an architect with pleasing sensibilities. Three well-proportioned second floor dormers faced the street, as did the two windows with shutters on the …
MAY 17, 2024 – (Cont.) I don’t know why, but after a couple of years the Kuhlmeys moved. Maybe it was because the lilac bush refused to surrender, even after having been burned at the stake by Mr. Kuhlmey. Replacing the Kulmeys were the Walchessens, by far the most interesting of our successors, mainly because …
MAY 16, 2024 – (Cont.) The third set of neighbors to occupy our old house next door were the Kuhlmeys—Mr. and Mrs., their grown son who’d been on his own before the Kuhlmeys move-in, and their very young son. Our family had very little interaction with these people, largely because they seemed to have little …
MAY 15, 2024 – (Cont.) Taking the place of the Schippers was Mrs. Gage, a widow of my grandparents’ vintage, and her son Dick. I’ve forgotten what he did for a living, if I ever knew in the first place. What I remember, however, is that he wore a suit to work and always flashed …
MAY 14, 2024 – (Cont.) Saturday’s nearly six hours of heavy labor left me feeling as I had every time after skiing the 52km American Birkebeiner Ski Marathon. I was so utterly exhausted, my walk was down to a shuffle. I was afraid to lie down for fear I wouldn’t be able to get back …
MAY 13, 2024 – (Cont.) Although I know the basic rules of chess, I’m no chess player, and on the few occasions when I’ve humored an actual chess player among extended family members, my lack of skill has become evident within my first three moves. Yet I have an immense appreciation for chess, which, as …
MAY 12, 2024 – Blogger’s Note: This post is yet another interruption of The Neighbors series. The title of this immediate post (and tomorrow’s) is a reference to Maynard Pirsig’s philosophical discourse in chronicling his “oneness” with a motorcycle on a wind-in-his face trip across big sky country of the American West. Likewise, “Zen and the …
MAY 11, 2024 – During moving day in August 1961, our family became next door neighbors of ourselves. A year or two before, my parents had purchased the adjacent vacant lot from our neighbor Dr. Spurzem a few doors down and spent months planning their dream home. I remember well the process. Late into the …
MAY 10, 2024 – Next to the Holland cottage was the Violet compound occupying the sweeping rounded corner where the west end of Rice Street and the south end of Levee Avenue blended together. As the maxim of real estate valuation goes, “location, location, location.” Though the lot was across the street from the Mississippi, …
MAY 9, 2024 – Next door (upstream along the Mississippi River) to Caines lived the Moores. The parents, Fred and Ruth, were smart, sharp, kind, cultured, and civic minded, and from my perspective, their impressive house and yard reflected their well-deserved reputation as pillars of the community. I’ll save them for last. For now, I’ll …
MAY 8, 2024 – (Cont.) On warm weather afternoons Bill would stroll down the driveway to retrieve the mail. Hanging from a crosspiece was a wooden square bearing the family name below a silhouetted hunter, gun raised toward silhouetted ducks flying across the top of square. If Bill wasn’t an avid worker, he was an …
MAY 7, 2024 – (Cont.) Caines also owned two Labradors—a black and a yellow. Back in those days dogs enjoyed far more freedom than is the case today. Stormy, the black Lab, wandered freely, at least in our immediate section of the neighborhood. He never took a bite out of my lip, but his size …
MAY 6, 2024 – Next door to Bob Ehlen lived the Caines—Bill and Molly and their three kids—whose grounds and household were as scruffy and unorganized as Bob Ehlen’s were well manicured and buttoned-down. Our old house at Rice and Green faced the Caine chaos, which was perpetually in session. The center of their three-ring …
MAY 5, 2024 – Recently I tried to imagine the experience of a 10- to 15-minute stroll on the surface of Mercury, our solar system’s inner-most planet. My “what if” thought was inspired by what Dava Sobel has so to say about it in her acclaimed book, The Planets. The key features of the speedy …
MAY 4, 2024 – Before we moved to our new house at 505 Rice from our old house next door at the corner of Green and Rice, I hung out a lot right there at the corner street sign. I remember well the day a few weeks short of first grade when I figured out …
MAY 3, 2024 – Among my favorite children’s books when our sons were young were the Frog and Toad stories by Arnold Lobel. I enjoyed the illustrations, the writing, and the story lines. The books experienced a revival in our home when our eight-year-old granddaughter reached reading age. They are certain to be enjoyed as …
MAY 2, 2024 – Back in the day when lawyers wrote with a golden nib and spoke with a silver tongue, no member of the bar thought about marketing or advertising. In fact, until I entered law school in the 1976 of the Current Era (with emphasis on Current) advertising was strictly verboten. Part of …
MAY 1, 2024 – Last week as I joined the other passengers inching our way down the entrance ramp onto the Delta plane that would fly us from BDL to MSP, I noticed the checkered condition of the paint on the outside of the fuselage around the doorway. Obviously, the A320-200 had been in service …
APRIL 30, 2024 – I looked forward to writing today’s post. Having junked out on news reports about current events—everything from the war on Gaza to the college campus protests to the Hush Money Trial to what planet Bill Barr is on—I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say …