Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 16, 2023 – For several months leading up to Christmas last year, I worked single-mindedly on a gnome home project for our granddaughter, Illiana. What had begun as a simple, rustic concept morphed into a kaleidoscope of whimsical possibilities—and engineering challenges. When Illiana’s delight at the unveiling of the magnum opus – gnomus domus …
MAY 15, 2023 – For a half hour today, I slowed down the merry-go-round and savored time with our first grade granddaughter. It was my turn to pick up Illiana from school, and when she slipped into the car, she asked if we could go to a playground. “Sure,” I said. “Which one?” “How about …
MAY 14, 2023 – (Cont.) Many princely pines in the Trädgård are in worse shape than how we found our back-garden princess, but the latter is more accessible and not surrounded by tick-land. With all the necessary operating equipment relatively close at hand, I decided to administer emergency care to the stricken princess. I summoned …
MAY 13, 2023 – Nature. We view it romantically, spiritually, philosophically, scientifically, even religiously. But we also have a long history of approaching it contemptuously, as a nuisance, an obstacle, an enemy, and of course, a giant reservoir of riches to be exploited, pretty much at any cost, so long as a handsome profit can …
MAY 12, 2023 – Today we made our first trip to the Red Cabin since the snow melt and ice-out. Vegetation here is 10 days to two weeks behind the foliage at home, which itself is well behind its usual schedule. In mid-March the snow was still two feet deep, and that was before the …
MAY 11, 2023 – Today I accompanied our seven-year-old granddaughter to her three favorite playgrounds. I’d been to each before, but this time the energy level—hers, not mine—was higher than usual. As she climbed twisted ladders, hung upside down on elaborately arranged monkey bars, and zoomed down a long, two-stage, ground-based roller slide—“I’ll race you …
MAY 10, 2023 – When you attend a major league baseball game, you expect to see accomplished baseball players pitching, hitting, running and fielding. You’d howl if the players missed every other catch and throw; or if a football team took to the field, played football and called it baseball. Likewise, you wouldn’t want your …
MAY 9, 2023 – Late this month, Brown University will confer honorary doctorate degrees on six Americans of distinction. Among them will be the inimitable Ruth Oppenheim. I first met Ruth during college. Her son, Jeff, a close friend of mine, had invited me to stay with the family in Barrington, Rhode Island over Thanksgiving …
MAY 8, 2023 – As we navigate through life, we’re often oblivious to the random influence we have on one another. Today on my return from “Little Switzerland,” I walked past a house and yard that have been worked over beautifully by the owner. Over the years I’ve observed the substantial sweat equity he’s invested …
MAY 7, 2023 – Friday is garbage pickup day in our fair village. “Garbage,” of course, is “trash talk” for more refined terms describing the same crap: “waste” and “refuse.” I’ve always been amused by civilization’s relationship with its detritus. Anthropologists, for example, treat ancient dump sites as gold mines of information about the societies …
MAY 6, 2023 – I’ll never forget the humiliation. Three of my college buddies and I were watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports on the eminently portable black-and-white TV in the common area of our dorm suite. On that particularly memorable occasion, it was a slow day for Jim McKay: the featured spectacle was the …
MAY 5, 2023 – Today we were among the honored guests at a most resplendent affair. Food and drink were of the finest quality; the music—of Latin temperament—was well chosen and masterfully rendered; the attendees were neither too few nor too numerous to provide a steady flow of scintillating conversation; and the whole celebration was …
MAY 4, 2023 – (Cont.) 5. Travis, wearing a neat, clean pair of striped bib overalls appears at the door and accompanies Malarkey to the latter’s house. From the driveway, Malarkey points to the second story fascia board in need of replacement. “I don’t climb on roofs,” says Travis. “I promised my ex that out …
MAY 3, 2023 – Our seven-year-old granddaughter and I joke a lot about co-authoring children’s books patterned after her many favorite “silly series,” such as the Old Lady who Swallowed a [Something or other] or the Seussian classics that rhyme like “a lime on the nose of a Thing like our Zing with a ring.” …
MAY 2, 2023 – Juxtaposed to denial of the undeniable results of the 2020 presidential election, the Watergate scandal that ended the Nixon regime now looks comparatively tame. A deeper examination of the record, however, reveals the broader danger that Nixon posed to the democracy. Without “White House Tapes”—voice-activated recordings of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations—might …
MAY 1, 2023 – Inside a local hall on Sunday afternoon I heard violinist Steven Copes perform “the Brahms” with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. I’d heard him play it (with the SPCO) a number of years ago in a different Twin Cities venue. On both occasions his rendition of this staple “war horse” of …
APRIL 30, 2023 – (Cont.) Having escaped confinement, however, the World was now in open defiance of the laws of the universe. In reaction to my errant toe, the Big Ball shot across the carpet and rotated clumsily into a lamp stand, then like a billiard ball, banked left, straight for a chair. POW! In …
APRIL 29, 2023 – Years ago, Beth, my wife, bought the World in an all-inclusive deal: seven seas, seven continents, seven thousand islands upon a wide-diameter sphere—mounted on a handsome, wooden floor stand. The garage sale price, fully haggled, came to five bucks. The acquisition was for me (the consummate geography nerd) and fulfilled my …
APRIL 28, 2023 – To catch up on my continuing legal education credits, lately I’ve been attending web-based seminars featuring a bevy of lawyers talking about the finer points of one sub-set or another of . . . the law. I shouldn’t be surprised that many of them speak with a very strong Minnesota accent; …
APRIL 27, 2023 – Finally, 650 pages and the comprehensive survey of the worst conflagration the world has ever known are behind me. I speak of Inferno, The World at War, 1939 – 1945 by Max Hastings. Few books have had such an impact on my psyche and my world view generally. I could easily …
APRIL 26, 2023 – I’ve always been jarred by our cultural norm of breaking the conversational ice with a person in a non-business setting. “What do you do?” we ask, or if the person’s retired, “What did you do before retirement?” If the question elicits useful information, in most settings the answer provides only a …
APRIL 25, 2023 – Rumor had it—actually a local newspaper reported it in an article about my dad and our family when at 32 he was appointed to the public servant job he’d have for the rest of his working days. “It” was my mother’s notion that parents should always use positive language when framing …
APRIL 24, 2023 – (Cont.) And yet . . . I must confess that this same Pavlovian response (answering the phone spontaneously) has hacked its way into my cranial circuitry, albeit inconsistently. If certain people call me and I’m within earshot of my phone, I feel as if it’d be taken as a personal affront …
APRIL 23, 2023 – And now for a little two-part, Pavlovian comedy . . . With technological advancements and our corresponding adaptations, we easily lose sight of how ridiculous we’d appear to our former selves. Take ear buds, for example, in league with our phones. I remember the time years ago when I encountered a …
APRIL 22, 2023 – The world awaits Ukraine’s much anticipated spring offensive against the Russian invaders. Perhaps I overstate matters when I say, “the world.” At the time of the invasion 14 months ago, when news coverage was 24/7, we watched slack-jawed as Putin unleashed his horrors on the sovereign nation of Ukraine. The assault …