Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
DECEMBER 23, 2021 – Recently, we took our six-year-old granddaughter on a driving tour of local, outdoor Christmas lighting displays. There were the usual “icicles” and the new-fangled “dripping” lights; inflated Santas, looking slightly drunk as they swayed in the artificial wind of their internal fans; life-size Nutcracker soldiers of heavy plastic; lights wrapped around …
DECEMBER 22, 2021 – It became a family Christmas legend—me eating ornaments and landing in the hospital. No one could later remember the year. I figure it was 1956. First, I was old enough to have sufficient reference points to remember salient details of the story. Second, I wasn’t old enough to have known better …
DECEMBER 21, 2021 – I wish that I’d been more attentive, more “in tune,” as it were, with the humanitarian genius with whom I was breaking bread and sharing stories. I’m not much sure of the details, except that Yo-Yo Ma was in town performing with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and given my sister/brother-in-law’s …
DECEMBER 20, 2021 – “Because it’s there.” That was the reason George Leigh Mallory gave for his ill-fated attempt to conquer Mt. Everest in 1924. The phrase is often attributed to New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary, who, in 1953, with Tibetan Tenzing Norgay, reached where no one had gone before: the summit of earth’s highest …
DECEMBER 19, 2021 – I’m a person who’s strongly affected by the amount of daily sunlight. At this time of year (northern hemisphere), I struggle to climb out of bed before our late-rising star, and when Helios calls it a day at the end of his short, low-riding, chariot ride, I’m psychologically ill-prepared. It’s only …
DECEMBER 18, 2021 – Yesterday I got sidetracked by a PBS series about the War of 1812—the “Forgotten War,” more forgotten than the other “Forgotten War,” which, you’ll remember, was the “Korean War.” Even as an undergraduate history major, I emerged from college without much memory of what’s also called the Second American Revolution, more …
DECEMBER 17, 2021 – As I lie low with The Blasted Cough, and no holiday visitors are expected at our hearth this year, we’re not buying a cut-from-the earth Christmas tree. What’s ironic is that by my latest count, we have 17 “pretend” Christmas trees on display—not including the flat, felt tree (which our granddaughter …
DECEMBER 16, 2021 – My first glimpse of the Vale of Kashmir surpassed what the guidebooks had promised—blossoming fruit trees on the shores of Dal Lake, the glistening Himalayas jutting into blue infinity above the world. I stayed for only three weeks, but the memories are as vivid today as my actual experiences were that …
DECEMBER 15, 2021 – No “unified theory” exists for explaining the contradictions that define humanity. And yet . . . maybe a central truth resides within our species. I’ve always been a true believer in Santa Claus, and I’m scandalized by people who would punch him in the face. Today’s issue of The New York …
DECEMBER 14, 2021 – One of the biggest Wow! moments occurred aboard a city bus in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. After buying a ticket for two kopecks, I boarded the bus, handed the driver my ticket, and stepped down the aisle to an empty seat a few rows back. As I turned and faced …
DECEMBER 13, 2021 – It’s time to face the inevitable imperative of down-sizing. It’s time to quit talking about “stuff” and start doing something about it. First, let’s define “stuff.” Of course there’s generic stuff—in my case, for example, there’s ancient ski equipment and . . . especially, scrap lumber that will surely fulfill a …
DECEMBER 12, 2021 – When I saw the photos of destruction in the path of The Great Tornadoes, I wondered if we can find common ground in the wake of such wholesale destruction; ground from which can sow and cultivate a modicum of unity that has eluded us for nearly a generation. Perhaps a nation …
DECEMBER 11, 2021 – As part of yesterday’s distraction from The Cough [cough, sputter, cough], I watched the 1994 film, Wyatt Earp, starring Mr. West Man, Kevin Costner. I didn’t catch all of the three-hour movie, despite the production having won an Oscar for Best Cinematography. Nevertheless, I drew perspective from a chapter of America’s …
DECEMBER 10 , 2021 – I’m no different from anyone else. Exposed to “nonsense” on my smartphone screen, I react with, “How can that be?!” To recover my equilibrium, I do the smart thing: I put the dumb phone aside and follow more constructive pursuits. For example, I’ll watch a Netfix documentary about Ella Fitzgerald. …
DECEMBER 9, 2021 – Recently I gained some investment guidance and insight into politics when I visited . . . the doctor. After dispensing with medical advice my doc answered a general question about the Omicron variant. He’s highly educated, well-read, well-informed. In both mainstream media and medical literature, he’d read the latest news on …
DECEMBER 8, 2021 – I have a story of our times. I also have a confession of sorts: I’m a FB user, though not in any addictive sort of way. I post pics of our six-year-old granddaughter, who, in her grandparents’ world, is a cutie pie. For those posts, I receive lots of “likes” and …
DECEMBER 7, 2021 – Veterans Day was originally “Armistice Day,” marking the end of the “Great War for Civilization” (I kid you not—that’s what the victors dubbed it, despite the four years of criminal slaughter—all sides—of the men of a whole generation)—at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. …
DECEMBER 6, 2021 – For eight days I’ve been suffering from a blasted head cold. For me, the worst times are morning, afternoon, evening, and night. This morning was a doozy and put me in a dark, foul mood. My wife’s response was urgent care—for me. I mention this, not to garner sympathy—which should be …
DECEMBER 5, 2021 – If you try you can remember our ignoble exit from Afghanistan. If you try harder, you can remember our failure in Vietnam. Between those fiascos? The fight in Iraq—our effort at “nation-building” and . . . the rise of ISIS. Yesterday, I flipped through the latest issue of my college alumni …
DECEMBER 4, 2021 – I’m aware that my smartphone hears me talk—even when I’m not talking to it. And I know that if it hears me, it relays the information to the internet. When I later browse, I’m smacked with ads relating to conversations I’ve had in front of my phone. If the phone picks …
DECEMBER 3, 2021 – While driving (hacking and sneezing) to a Covid testing site yesterday, I listened to “Vaccination Nation” on Public Radio. Several experts discussed the Omicron variant and its anticipated effect. Amidst predictions came news that Omicron had just landed in Minnesota. My situation was a head-scratcher. I’d been “boostered” two weeks before …
DECEMBER 2, 2021 – Before getting down to business recently, a client and I chit-chatted about movies and TV shows/series we’d watched lately. My client had landed, as it were, on old episodes of the TV show, Twelve O’Clock High, a take-off of the 1949 movie starring Gregory Peck. My client said it was his …
DECEMBER 1, .2021 – I must confess. When I heard about the latest shootings—at a school, with an assault rifle—I moved quickly to other concerns. After all, this is “’Mrca,” land of the Second Amendment. But more to the point (“gun barrel”?), it’s the land of a ratio of firearms to people of close to …
NOVEMBER 30, 2021 – In our front yard stand a clump of three birch trees that now tower over our house. When I planted them umpteen years ago, they were small enough to transport home by sticking them up through the open sunroof of our car. I noticed recently that blustery weather had peeled off …
NOVEMBER 29, 2021 – Yesterday our son and daughter-in-law took us on an excursion between their hometown of Chester and down river to Essex, Connecticut. We took side routes and backroads for a closer look at this old part of New England. Our trip included breakfast at The Whistle Stop café, a cozy, local establishment …