Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2024 – I remember well the record jacket: it featured the head, shoulders and left hand of a smiling gentleman performing the violin. A row of stage lights burned brightly above him. In big gold capital letters above the image on the jacket was the man’s last name, “FRANCESCATTI.” In much smaller letters …
SEPTEMBER 21, 2024 – After breakfast on the porch I ventured out to the dock to survey the unsettled weather. The wind was picking up from the southeast, and dark clouds lined the horizon. It wouldn’t take long for a clearer picture to form. By 10 o’clock the wind was roaring at 20 miles an …
SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 – I remember the first time I played soccer. It was during Pee Wee baseball practice at Park Street Park. Our so-called coach decided he—and we—had had enough baseball for the afternoon and should try something different, such as soccer. If he knew next to nothing about the sport, we eight-year-olds or …
SEPTEMBER 19, 2024 – Today the early weather was splendiferous. I decided to get an early start for the Red Cabin and spend the day doing trail work in the “tree garden” before Beth joins me tomorrow to enjoy a stretch of fine days, so says the forecast. Just as I pressed the ignition button …
SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 – If you follow the same daily walking route over the years, you inevitably become acquainted with people along the way. On Monday I wrote about one such acquaintance, a retired engineer. Today I met another amiable guy—Phillip—with whom I’ve chatted at length on multiple occasions over the past decade. We hadn’t …
SEPTEMBER 17, 2024 – With just eight weeks to the Big Day, I feel like a planet with a non-symmetrical elliptical daily orbit around the sun of politics. At the apogeal phase, I’m scorched and agitated; at the perigean, I’m cool and calm. So it is with all sorts of non-political stresses and strains—anxious now; …
SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 – Today on my walk I ran into . . . er, encountered . . . an acquaintance of mine, a retired engineer, whom I hadn’t seen since early this summer. He and his wife own a nice home with a grand view of the park, and he was out tending a …
SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 – Aging seems to increase my amazement. Late one evening recently we sat with friends out on the dock for conversation and a bit of star-gazing. The first quarter moon had already set, leaving the Milky Way and constellations in full command of the celestial stage. I’d brought out two sets of …
SEPTEMBER 13, 2024 – Now I get to write about “back to nature,” which, if you read yesterday’s post, had competed unsuccessfully with “politics.” Late yesterday evening while out on the Red Cabin porch, I put my book down and peered into the darkness outside. Except . . . through the darkness shone . . …
SEPTEMBER 13, 2024 – Hmmm. While contemplating today’s post I vacillated. Inspired by several natural phenomena I’ve encountered during my time in paradise up here at the Red Cabin, I wanted to highlight a few. On the other hand, gobsmacked by the latest news about Laura Loomer, who is charitably described as a “right-wing provocateur” …
SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 – To date, Democratic strategist James Carville’s most famous line is “It’s the economy, stupid.” It was directed at workers on the 1992 Clinton campaign, not because Carville believed they were stupid, but because he wanted everyone in the campaign to focus. At campaign headquarters in Little Rock, the insightful and effective …
SEPTEMBER 11, 2024 – Not that I’m superstitious or anything, but long ago I decided it was good luck if we saw at least one eagle during a stay at the Red Cabin on Grindstone Lake. The longer the stay, of course, the greater the odds of securing a measure of good luck. Early this …
SEPTEMBER 10, 2024 – I say it after each “presidential debate” I watch on TV: “My head hurts.” This time around my head really hurt. For the first few minutes, I blamed both candidates, but as the event proceeded, one of the candidates was responsible for the vast majority of my pain and eventually, 100% …
SEPTEMBER 9, 2024 – Tuesday evening millions of Americans plus millions of people around the world will tune in to the “debate,” so-called, between the two main candidates for president of the United States. I’m not sure yet if I’ll tune in or not. On Monday evening in the company of my spouse, sister and …
SEPTEMBER 8, 2024 – I dream a lot—every night. Back when I maintained a daily journal I’d often recount the more unusual dreams, but it’s been years since I kept a diurnal record of things, dreams included. Last night, however, I experienced one of the strangest dreams of my life; so strange I feel a …
SEPTEMBER 7, 2024 – As we enter the last eight weeks of the endless presidential campaign, the Man Who Would Be Grover gets weirder and weirder, to borrow from the Man from Minnesota. If, in the words of Winston Churchill, Russia is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” the Republican re-candidate for …
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 …