Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 7, 2019 – Today I turn 65. Readers older than I have standing to agree or disagree with the observations and resolutions I’m about to make. People under 65 will be left to wonder . . . until they’re 65. 65 is when I qualify for Medicare and a net savings of $500/mo. in health …
AUGUST 6, 2019 – The most reliable barometer of America’s future is the desire of people to come here to forge a better life. The stronger the desire, the more hope for our future. If the day comes, however, when ambitious people no longer view America as a beacon of opportunity, then know that we are …
AUGUST 5, 2019 – Gun control; immigration reform; student loan burdens; opioid crisis; arms sales to Saudia Arabia; support of Israel; relations with NATO allies; relations with Russia; relations with China; disease control; tariffs; war in Afghanistan; religious extremism; white nationalism; investment in public transit; transportation safety; affordable and accessible quality health care; storage of nuclear …
AUGUST 4, 2019 – The next day was another hot, sunny day. Starting around 10:00 in the morning, we jumped on our bikes and patrolled the beach end of Rice Street. Occasionally we’d take a spin around the block. By 11:00 a sizable crowd of swimmers and sunbathers had gathered. Time to strike. I felt an …
AUGUST 3, 2019 – I went to work on my clump of clay: Jedediah Carson passed by here in the year 1845. Bobby watched closely. When I finished, he asked, “What should I write?” I thought a bit and recalled the American Heritage article about the Kensington Runestone—the large stone uncovered by a farmer in rural …
AUGUST 2, 2019 – It was in early August before fifth grade. I’d been down at the beach most of the day. For a change of pace, I went home, hopped on my bike and rode figure eights in the street in front of our house. Something—boredom?—triggered a thought. I pulled out of a figure eight …
AUGUST 1, 2019 – Every good story involves a little background: FIRST: By the age of eight, I was hooked on history. My dad ensured that. He read aloud to me books like William Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico and articles out of his bi-monthly issues of American Heritage magazine. History fired up my imagination. SECOND: Our house …
JULY 31, 2019 – I listened to several patches of yesterday evening’s Democratic Presidential “Debate.” I think each of the innumerable candidates falls into one of three rings: FIRST RING: “I can beat Trump because I’m for free stuff”; SECOND RING: “I can beat Trump because I can”; THIRD RING: “I can beat Trump because I’m …
JULY 30, 2019 – I’m a non-conformist, as are other members of the family. Example: I hate going to the dentist. I’m kidding. Seriously, I’d dreaded yesterday’s appointment, though it was a cleaning session with Michelle. No problem there. She’s a five-star pro. What I’d feared was what she’d do with me after I mentioned episodic …
JULY 29, 2019 – At midnight Saturday I’d just turned off the downstairs lights. The faint glow of an upstairs nightlight was all that guided my way to the steps. My wife had retired earlier and was fast asleep in the second floor bedroom overlooking the open space below where I’d been reading. Suddenly appeared …
JULY 27, 2019 – Thursday evening my wife and I spent four hours in and around a work of art, hosted by our dear friends, the artists themselves, Jack and Linda Hoeschler of St. Paul. They are not artists in the way most people think of artists, and I doubt Jack or Linda would ever …
JULY 26, 2019 – (cont.) As for my part, I was thrilled. Dad, the anti-sports fan, was showing me a new and unexpected side. We hopped in the car and proceeded down West River Road, bound for Bloomington and old Metropolitan Stadium. Along the way we stopped at a burger drive-in in the Camden neighborhood …
JULY 25, 2019 – Yesterday evening my brother-in-law, who is a big fan of baseball, and my sister, who is not, took me—a one-time baseball fanatic—to a Twins-Yankees game at Target Field, an easy walk from their apartment on the edge of downtown and from my office in the center of downtown Minneapolis. The weather …
JULY 24, 2019 – In these parts, winter can be brutally long. Some people would say brutally wrong, especially last winter, when heavy snow and cold temps slammed us repeatedly all the way into April. We took it on the chin—or wrist, rib, elbow or ankle. When spring finally arrived, it did so reluctantly. Trees, …
JULY 23, 2019 – Yesterday, after the usual entanglements at work, I went home and wrestled with our overgrown shrubbery. After giving major haircuts and gathering up, then piling up the clippings, I was ready for something more relaxing . . . like practicing my violin. What was I thinking?! On my scale, so to …
JULY 22, 2019 – What is Nature? Webster’s defines it broadly as “the physical world and everything in it that is not made by people.” Religionists might define it as “creation.” Spiritualists might define it as “God” (or “god”) itself. For now, I’ll go with Webster’s. But what exactly is the nature of Nature? Beautiful? …
JULY 21, 2019 – Lately I’ve suffered a bad bout of my own myopia. Sure, occasionally I read the “news,” or rather, I check the “media,” to see what’s happening beyond my immediate horizon. But beyond my little world, my limited observations, my narrow frame of reference, I know barely a smattering of details about …
JULY 20, 2019 – In a vibrant democratic society, just as in every parent-child relationship, a tension exists between independent thought and the need to conform. On the surface—and in the mind of many-a-teenager—these two concepts seem inherently incompatible, but they are not. In a well-adjusted society/relationship, they are complementary. I’ve written an entire screenplay …
JULY 19, 2019 – Trigger warning: I’m about to bash . . . big-time college sports. What lit my fuse was my bus ride home this evening. Typically I take the “61,” which runs straight through downtown, but construction raised havoc with the route. My alternative was a “3,” which follows a circuitous path through …
JULY 18, 2019 – My favorite lines in the classic, Lost Horizon by James Hilton, are spoken by Chang, an initiate of the lamasery in Shangri-La, to-wit: If I could put it into a very few words, dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding …
JULY 17, 2019 – Last week while walking the neighborhood, I encountered a new neighbor. I stopped to chat. We soon discovered many common interests. In the course of talking, the neighbor told a “small world” story. Then I told two, sufficiently linked to count as one. They (it) went like this: For high school, …
JULY 16, 2019 – For today’s post I had several topics in mind. One was another (yawn) political diatribe against the president whose name I will not mention, because it feeds into his sole three purposes in life: 1. Publicity; 2. Publicity; and 3. Publicity. Another subject was sailing and how in a very real …
JULY 15, 2019 – Whenever I spend time up at the cabin, I think about nature and . . . climate change. I think about what scientists are saying about changes to the environment around here; that over the next two decades, loons will be forced farther north until they disappear from here altogether; how a …
JULY 14, 2019 – Here are three more “relics of the past.” THE GRINCH. A memo from the department head at my second law firm to all eight department associates, chastising us for being lazy, stupid, and otherwise deficient. The withering diatribe concluded with this: Each of you should reflect on what your career goals …
JULY 13, 2019 – As an early post disclosed, in October 1981 I took a ride on the railroad—the Trans-Siberian—both ways. During the journeys, I drank lots of tea dispensed from the samovar at the end of the carriage. The attendant poured the tea into a tea glass in a commemorative (70 years of Communism), …