Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 – Earlier this summer I constructed two wooden ramps to provide passage over two side-by-side fallen giants of the woods, each . . . two feet in diameter. The completed project looked simple enough, but in design and construction the operation required a fair among of engineering. As with most completed cabin …
SEPTEMBER 5, 2024 – (Cont.) When Susan and her husband Bob pulled into the yard, I had no idea what to expect. She was such a young kid when we’d last met on the deck of her family’s swimming pool in New Jersey, she’d made no lasting impression. We’d had no contact since. Jenny, who’d …
SEPTEMBER 4, 2024 – (Cont,) Many families experience splits, rifts, friction, upheavals, estrangement. The fractures in our own—cousin vs. cousin (Carol’s father vs. my uncle) and, it seemed, brother vs. brother (Carol’s grandfather vs. mine)—were not unusual as families go. Only a specialisit in abnormal psychology, however, could categorize the discord that ebbed and flowed …
SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 – (Cont.) In anticipation of our mini-reunion with Carol and her husband Barry, Jenny and I talked about things we could do and places where we could dine out. On our list were “Anna’s house” two doors down, where Anna and her husband Mickey lived. They were shirt-tail relatives of ours, though …
SEPTEMBER 1, 2024 – (Cont.) “I heard a car door close. I think they’re here,” my sister Jenny said excitedly, as we stood outside the cove side of the dwelling. Eagerly we circled around to the front to welcome our visitors. Carol is the second of four kids of the second child of the second …
AUGUST 31, 2024 – (Cont.) The main, 200-foot-long hedge runs from the corner of Cove Road and Oakland to the stone-and-mortar pillars at the entrance to the property. Having walked and driven numerous times along the neglected landscaping over the previous several days, I decided to follow Michelle Obama’s standing entreaty and “DO SOMETHING.” Much …
AUGUST 30, 2024 – Blogger’s note: Today’s central activity—a trip to the Minnesota State Fair with our almost nine-year-old granddaughter—produced material and memories that warranted a break from my Landscaping: The Great Escape series. “Plan A” called for my wife to take Illiana to the Minnesota State Fair today while I got an early start …
AUGUST 29, 2024 – (Cont.) Mother and UB—the last of their generation in our family—died within two months of each other in the first half of 2017. In August of that year my sisters and I and two members of the next generation gathered for three days at Lyme Light. It was the first time …
AUGUST 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Over a century ago our great-grandfather oversaw tasteful landscaping of his property. The enhancements included a mix of flower and vegetable gardens, strategically placed shade trees, a small orchard, rose bushes, and a hedge along the 300-foot roadside border, interrupted by an entrance marked by twin stout stone-and-mortar pillars. On …
AUGUST 27, 2024 – (Cont.) My three sisters and I inherited the place from our elders, who’d inherited it from their elders, who’d inherited it from their elders. After succeeding in business back in New Jersey, our great-grandfather returned to our great-grandmother’s Connecticut roots to establish a veritable Shangri-la over-looking Upper Hamburg Cove just a …
AUGUST 26, 2024 – Ever since I was a kid I’ve been persnickety about yard and garden landscaping and maintenance. If you asked my wife about this self-assessment she’d say, “Huh?!” followed by “If what he said were true, our yard at home wouldn’t look so sinfully scraggly, and he’d get around to pruning [“that huge …
AUGUST 25, 2024 – The other day I found myself aboard a spacecraft entering the parking lot of a Costco store in East Lyme, CT. It could just as well have been a Costco store back home in Minnesota: the lot was jammed with cars, except their license plates bore the motto, “The Constitution State” …
AUGUST 24, 2924 – (Cont.) As fully expected, Scott Jennings, a Republican surrogate and contract commentator on CNN, criticized KAM-ala’s acceptance speech for the absence of any policy substance. In keeping with his usual civility, he did compliment her style and presidential appearance. As to substance, Jennings was largely correct in one regard but way …
AUGUST 23, 2024 – It was a yowzer; I mean the DNC—attended by the most unified, most jazzed up, most diverse delegates to a Democratic National Convention I’ve ever witnessed. In what is surely a harbinger of victory, at the conclusion of KAMA-la’s rousing acceptance speech last night, a veritable torrent of 18 gazillion red-white-and-blue …
AUGUST 22, 2024 – Blogger’s note: A hectic travel schedule and other distractions and diversions—including the DNC—have temporarily interrupted my writing cadence. Moreover, the post that I’d intended for yesterday fell flat, as did another one for today. Neither made the cut and thus produced another gap in my blog. I’m still in travel mode, …
AUGUST 20, 2024 – Today I underwent a P.E.T. scan in the nuclear medicine department of the University of Minnesota’s Sprawling Medical Science and Services Empire (I’m making up the name but not its size or substance). The exercise was what I call “a data generator” in anticipation of my upcoming second annual check-up with …
AUGUST 19, 2024 – My main objective in taking the boat for a spin was to see if I could get the darned thing off the lift. I’d already experienced difficulty in this regard before our trip to Portugal two weeks ago, and the lake level has dropped another inch or two since. In the …
AUGUST 18, 2024 – What a difference a month makes; or technically, less than a month. Before Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Democrats had been in a five-alarm panic over the Debate Debacle. From the flight deck of the campaign, prospects looked grim. The aircraft was losing altitude fast, yet to port …
AUGUST 17, 2024 – At the top of the boarding announcement at JFK for our flight back to MSP yesterday, we heard the usual preferential treatment granted to “families with young children, passengers requiring special assistance, and all military personnel,” with the add-on, “we thank you for your service.” I have as much respect for …
AUGUST 16, 2024 – Today we concluded our long-anticipated trip to Portugal to celebrate a special occasion “back in the village”: our grandson’s baptism combined with his first birthday party. This celebration accounts for the nine-day gap in my blog posts. The only other interruption of this length occurred five years ago when we traveled …
AUGUST 6, 2024 – Family, friends from outside Minnesota ask me what I think of this guy Walz. What I say: In the course of watching his daily news conferences during the depths of the Covid-19 crisis, I kept thinking, This guy deserves national attention. In fact, he’s definitely presidential timber. And now here we …
AUGUST 5, 2024 – As with many a plan that goes awry, its derailment or alternative can often produce a serendipitous result. Having booked a stateroom aboard the R.M.S. Titanic, for example, a couple misses the ship’s departure, and lo and behold, they get to avoid swimming with the icebergs. Or in my largely unremarkable …
AUGUST 4, 2024 -When the opportunity presents itself, I love boarding and inspecting old refurbished wooden yachts. My most recent encounter with such a classic vessel occurred last summer at the Annual Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. What stopped our slow walk along the wharf was a 30-something-foot-long beautifully restored sloop. …
AUGUST 2, 2024 – (Cont.) When the auto-mechanic . . . er, dental hygienist . . . said that my Sonicare toothbrush had worked wonders on my gumlines, I immediately thought of another analogy: me as a country. When I heard the good news about the condition of my gums, I thought of myself as …
AUGUST 1, 2024 – Among the first devices that a student meets in a creative writing class are the simile and the metaphor. Likewise, among the initial cognitive tactics taught in law school is thinking analogically. As a practical matter, very early on in my life I’d resorted to similes, metaphors, and analogies, not so …