Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 26, 2023 – After paying my dues all morning and into the afternoon, I took a break to take our seven-year-old granddaughter to nearby Como Park, St. Paul’s version of Central Park. She had the day off from school—something about a teachers’ workshop—so her mom had taken her to work at a shop near …
MAY 25, 2023 – (Cont.) Aluminum docks are fine—if you’re installing or removing them: they’re light and easily assembled and disassembled. But I despair over the visual pollution they cause along the shoreline. On more crowded portions of the 16-mile shore around Grindstone Lake, the dominant features are white-painted aluminum docks and huge aluminum boat …
MAY 24, 2023 – (Cont.) Carl and Grandpa eventually grew too old to play any role in “dock-in” day—and thus, too old for the Old Crow that would follow the arduous annual ritual. The dock itself grew old too, of course, and had to be replaced. Dad was now lord of the manor—and harbor master, …
MAY 23, 2023 – (Cont.) What made the cradle so dangerous were the hand cranks. Made of cast iron, they were connected to other cast iron fittings in such a way that by squeezing a mechanism on the crank handle, you could lock the crank in place or release it so you could turn the …
MAY 22, 2023 – (Cont.) What amazed me as much as Carl’s steel driving skill was his ability to line things up so that the holes in the sides of the dock frames lined up perfectly with the holes in the pipe brackets. After Carl had driven the pipes down into the lake bed and …
MAY 21, 2023 – Way back in time, “dock-in” day was an annual ritual in the lake and cabin country of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Every family with a rustic, lacustrian getaway had its unique formula, but invariably the affair involved the dock itself—bracketed pipes and wooden dock sections heavier than sin; a steel boat …
MAY 20, 2023 – Today a sister called me to catch up. At some juncture she said, “I’m sure you remembered, but today is Dad’s birthday.” “Yeah,” I said, adding that he would’ve been 101. “Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t live that long,” she said, light-heartedly. I agreed. Rarely are sight, taste, hearing, …
MAY 19, 2023 – When it comes to art and poetry, I know what I like and what I don’t like, and I really like the poetry of Don Brunnquell. This evening we attended a reading by Don, aided by several others, from a newly published collection of his poems, A World Together / Family …
MAY 18, 2023 – In the early days of my legal career, I dreaded “CLE” (Continuing Legal Education) seminars. Al Gore had yet to invent the internet, so “webinars” didn’t yet exist either. Even “casual Fridays” were a thing of the future. You had to attend all sessions in person and wear your usual uniform—a …
MAY 17, 2023 – Apart from chronic environmental issues bearing down on the entire planet, the most acute potential crisis facing the world right now is the effect of Congressional failure to raise (or better yet, abolish) the artificial cap on U.S. Government debt. This is one of the dumbest of all wholly avoidable, self-inflicted …
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 …