Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JUNE 8, 2024 – Here I sit, halfway in the sun, halfway in the shade, watching the big parade of cumulus clouds drift slowly but purposefully overhead. Like a vast armada with sails hoisted to the heavens, their crews look down on us earthbound admirers and occasionally wave. You can tell the ships of the …
JUNE 7, 2024 – It’s instructive, I think, to view the Duly Defeated’s stranglehold on the Party of Lincoln—and Nixon—through the historic prism of the Watergate Era. This perspective can reassure hand-ringers worried that the Duly Defeated might well become the Duly Elected. During the first impeachment hearings of Biden’s immediate predecessor—remember that far back?—a …
JUNE 6, 2024 – For years the Soviet view of the D-Day invasion was inversely proportionate to the American obsession with commemoration of that historic day. Stalin had long been pressing Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front in Western Europe to draw Germans away from the Eastern Front, where the Nazis had been …
JUNE 5, 2024 – Back in the day when I was a compulsive runner and x-c skier, I didn’t think much during the thousands of hours I spent pounding the pavement or striding relentlessly down the track. The physical demands were too intense to allow for anything but focus on pace or . . . …
JUNE 4, 2024 – In search of a topic for today’s post, I first scanned the early morning news headlines, but all that came through was, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Then, while comfortably seated on our back porch, I happened to glance up from my cup of java just as a bird …
JUNE 3, 2024 – Voter dissatisfaction with each of the two major candidates in a presidential election has long been a feature of the American political landscape. This phenomenon persists in the current round, but not voting or voting for a third-party candidate is no more likely to produce a “happy result” than these maverick …
JUNE 2, 2024 – In ancient times I was involved in a case concerning a prominent piece of real estate in downtown St. Paul[1]. For years the matter consumed a plurality, sometimes a majority, of my billable hours at the firm. Other lawyers with the pertinent client relationship that predated my hiring had reeled the …
JUNE 1, 2024 – This morning in my self-quarantine at the Red Cabin, I received a call from my sister Jenny. She was on a stroll—no, at her customary gait, it was a power walk—through Central Park across the street from her and her husband’s Upper West Side abode. “How’s your cold?” she asked. “I’m …
MAY 31, 2024 – What light was filtering through the thick overcast was now fading, and as I walked along the woodland path, I mistook the sound of rain—which I did not feel, being well-attired against mosquitoes—for wind until the shining leaves moved not in concert but individually, like a sea of uncoordinated bobble-heads plunked …
MAY 30, 2024 – In his recent commencement address at Brandeis University, Ken Burns imparted exceptional wisdom in prose that bordered on poetic. One pearl among the many reflected the famous documentarian’s relationship with nature. He encouraged the graduates to . . . Be in nature, which is always perfect and where nothing is binary. …
MAY 29, 2024 – My wife recently returned from a three-week sojourn in The Last Frontier—Alaska, a name derived from Aleut-language meaning, the “mainland” or more expanded idiomatic form, the “object toward which the action of the sea is directed.” She was not on a cruise, which is vantage point of most Lower 48 American …
MAY 28, 2024 – What delights Beth (a former teacher) and me (a former student, who by and large enjoyed school) is that our second-grade granddaughter likes school so much, one of her favorite after-school activities is . . . playing school. Half the fun for all of us is the set-up. Emulating what she …
MAY 27, 2024 – This time of year is “birthday week” for our two sons, Cory (May 23) and Byron (May 27). When Cory turned one, 37 years ago, I started the tradition of writing, then reading aloud, a birthday letter, which summarized highlights of the previous year and imparted encouragement for the year ahead. …
MAY 26, 2024 – I recognized the small, embossed leather pouch with its tidy snap-down cover and bearing the stylized initials “CPA.” The gold letters were undiminished by time, though long expunged from memory is the identity of the pouch’s original owner. I’d uncovered the object among an unorganized cluster of odd-lot keepsakes consigned to …
MAY 25, 2024 – (Cont.) In the morning of May 25, Dan and I found our way to the Dalkon Shield Settlement Claims Administration facility occupying a full city block in downtown Richmond. On hand to greet us was Mike Sheppard. I remember him well even without the aid of my journal. He engaged with …
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 …