Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JUNE 16, 2026 – Today we sojourners followed our guides at a leisurely pace to bustling Midtown. I never tire of going there and watching the swarming tourists, businesspeople, shop workers, shop patrons, delivery persons, traffic and traffic police—all participants in the wondrous interchange of goods and services that make up . . . the …
JUNE 15, 2026 – Today, Beth, our 10-year-old-granddaughter and I boarded a train bound for “the City.” Bits of conversation, long views out the window, a medium-length snooze, a Chekhov short story, and an even shorter cab ride . . . took us to our destination. The main elevator to the apartment is being overhauled, …
JUNE 14, 2026 – Our “Connecticut son” has a large mower to go with his family’s large yard. He also has a large garage for storing the large mower, but as he has learned about space in the context of home ownership, the homeowner never has enough of it. In other words, he discovered that …
JUNE 13, 2026 – Recently, my daily walk took me past a school playground on the opposite side of the street. It was recess time, and on the near side of the playground a group of fifth or sixth grade boys and girls were kicking a ball around. I’d say “soccer” ball, except it looked …
JUNE 12, 2026 – (Cont.) Anxiety: My Violin – Part I. Back in January I noticed an imperfection in my A string[1]. Often this is a sign the fine-wire binding around the string is about to unravel. When this occurs, nothing can be done except to replace the string. Easy enough, except . . . …
JUNE 11, 2026 – (Cont.) After the service, one of our “sustainability” classmates, Ellen Shuman (see my 6/8 post), asked if I’d been “nervous” playing my violin up there at the front of the chapel nave crowded with heavy hearts and meditative minds. “No,” I said. Which is not to say that in the months …
JUNE 10, 2026 – (Cont.) I trust that readers who’ve stayed aboard the good ship Reunion for this extended cruise will leave the flares where they’re stowed and indulge me further—through this pre-penultimate “Reunion” post and the concluding two posts, as I describe the full “denouement” of my 50th college class reunion. The Remembrance and …
JUNE 9, 2026 – (Cont.) As the reunion itself unfolded, I realized what an impossible agenda—or more precisely, agendae—it encompassed. On the one hand, each attendee confronted the enormously complex process of reestablishing connections with dozens, even scores of old friends and acquaintances, plus other classmates and spouses. I personally interacted directly (to varying degrees) …
JUNE 8, 2026 – (Cont.) Out of a class of approximately 340 students at an old (est. 1794) New England liberal arts college, all of said students having passed the admission matrix established by the legendary Director of Admissions, Richard Moll, with the able assistance of his right-hand man, the inimitable Richard “Mers” Mersereau, there …
JUNE 7, 2026 – (Cont.) Before I leave the subject of campus mischief as purveyed by the B.P.T.O. and lead my dear readers back to more dignified features of the 50th reunion, I must recount one more connection between old memories of mischief and new memories of edification. I can’t do that, however, without noting …
JUNE 6, 2026 – (Cont.) Our Phase II success made us think even bigger, as in . . . A whale. Why not strike at the very top of the Bowdoin College food chain? Why not hit the good-natured president of the college, “Jolly Roger Howell,” whose appeal to supplement academic over-achievement had inspired the …
JUNE 5, 2026 – (Cont.) Jeff and I soon realized that there were bigger Maine lobsters to be trapped: faculty. We ramped up the “terror”/business plan accordingly. We now plastered campus—again, clandestinely—with mimeographed signs that read, “CREAM A PROF”. Our plug was simple: *TAKE OUT A CONTRACT ON A PROFESSOR FROM ANY OF THE FOLLOWING …
JUNE 4, 2026 – (Cont.) Ever since high school I’d been a fan of Camus, which rendered me curious about Algeria, which is why I was drawn to the acclaimed documentary La Bataille d’Alger (The Battle of Algiers) when it was showing at Bowdoin our sophomore year. The film was about the Arab urban guerrilla …
JUNE 3, 2026 – (Cont.) Toward the end of our senior year at Bowdoin, I engaged in some nonsense of my own, albeit in league with Jeff Oppenheim, on whom by that stage I’d exerted a corruptive influence, though by no means irredeemably so. Jeff continued to act as an older, wiser brother exercising superior …
JUNE 2, 2026 – (Cont.) In anticipation of the 50th reunion, I’d said to a non-Bowdoin friend, “I don’t want to engage in a lot of ‘remember the time our freshman year when [we engaged in some puerile prank that we thought was so clever—guffaw, guffaw]?’ I’d much rather stick to (high-minded) talk about people’s …
JUNE 1, 2026 – (Cont.) I remember the time about a decade after I’d left the venerable St. Paul firm of Briggs & Morgan for greener pastures over in Minneapolis, when I had occasion to attend a business meeting in the same old First National Bank Building where Briggs still occupied five floors of the …
MAY 31, 2026 – (Cont.) At Logan maybe it was the hard plastic bins dropping down into the pick-up slots below the conveyor belt; OR . . . perhaps it was the young TSA man barking sharp directives with such volume they sounded like reprimands before I’d done anything wrong; OR . . . another …
MAY 30, 2026 – Blogger’s note: I’m on assignment. Stay close . . . and in tune.
MAY 29, 2026 – The intensity of today’s reunion activities revealed that yesterday’s engagements were in the wading end of the pool. Today we all swam in much deeper waters, starting with chatting up a storm over breakfast and in the case of seven of us, turning off the lights on the last conversations of …
MAY 28, 2026 – Today we climbed out of bed early to make the day-long trek from Minnesota to Maine (via Massachusetts) for my 50th college class reunion. To be truthful, four years ago when I first started hearing about plans for this occasion, my thoughts were focused on the pending stem cell transplant I …
MAY 27, 2026 – It is in our nature, I guess, that when the Northwind blows, forcing us to pull our collars up and walk with folded arms to trap more body heat, we complain about the cold. Yet, when the tables are turned and the Southwind sends its hot and humid breath across the …
MAY 26, 2026 – I don’t know what I did to wind up in a family full of grammarians, but that’s what happened to me. One of my most searing memories as a teenager away at school was receiving from a certain family member, a Xeroxed (back when such was a word) version of one …
MAY 25, 2026 – This morning after breakfast and Java, I sat at the log dining table at the Red Cabin, pecking away at correspondence on my laptop. Facing the lake exactly 75 feet from the windows, I periodically looked up to check on the scenery. A splendid breeze frolicked across the two-mile fetch from …
MAY 24, 2026 – My parents, bless their souls, were philhellenes and to a lesser extent, Romanophiles—lesser because as I remember my dad explaining when I was quite young, for the most part, the Ancient Romans were “copycats,” the Ancient Greeks having been the source of so much that later evolved in the hands and …
MAY 23, 2026 – I remember asking my mother one evening when I was young, “Would you rather be great or famous?” Without answering it, Mother turned the question around. “What would you rather be?” “Great,” I said. Of course mother had to ask why. “Because . . . Anything can make a person famous if …