Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 1, 2021 – Yesterday, our son Byron and daughter-in-law, Mylène, gave us a walking tour of their new home-town, Chester, CT (pop. 3,994), then drove us to Rocky Neck State Park on Long Island Sound. On the rural route back, we stopped for locally-made ice-cream. As we enjoyed the scenery of these parts, where …
JULY 31, 2021 – Yesterday we arrived at the home of our younger son, Byron, and his wife, Mylène in Chester, Connecticut. They moved here recently from New York. As Byron worked the grill on the back deck of their new home on a wild, wooded lot, I said, “I know you don’t have to …
JULY 29, 2021 – Late yesterday afternoon, we arrived at the door of my wife’s cousin Kathy, a short walk from Lake Michigan off Milwaukee’s South Shore. Kathy had moved into the Bayview neighborhood a few months ago and was eager to show us around. Kathy’s sister Sandy, who lives nearby, joined us. Together we …
JULY 28, 2021 – By appearances, my boyhood town, Anoka, Minnesota, was a provincial place at the confluence of the Rum and the Mississippi. Many of my grade school classmates were farm kids. Some came from homes without telephones. Many folks had been stuck in Anoka or its immediate environs for much too long. Their …
JULY 27, 2021 – Yesterday, I visited our good friends Jack and Linda in their Japanese garden—a national treasure. They themselves are a national treasure. (See 7/27/2019 post, “It is Zen.”) Two years later, the world has changed, but Jack and Linda’s Japanese garden still provides respite from that wild world. As we sat in …
JULY 26, 2021 – With this post I reach a milestone: my 800th entry since I started this blog in April 2019. At 500 words per post, that works out to four books of fiction—or perhaps I meant, “friction.” In the grand scheme of things, however, I wonder sometimes whether my efforts add to the …
JULY 25, 2021 – Yesterday I walked along a wide logging road on our back acreage and noticed how well the many red and white pine seedlings had done this year, despite the paucity of rain. Most of the three- and four-year old seedlings have doubled their height. Because of this growth, the pine are …
JULY 24, 2021 – We were running late as I strapped our granddaughter into the car. Then I noticed her ring was missing—again. Earlier she’d arrived sporting a new ring—with “magical powers.” But being over-sized, it kept coming off. The ring was always immediately recovered by my wife, me, or the little girl herself. Now …
JULY 23, 2021 – By last summer’s end, gnome homes had proliferated throughout our neighborhood. Captivated by these whimsically works, I joined the fad. I made two gnome homes and started a third. Winter halted construction, but while my building materials—natural “finds” from our woods—were in hibernation under the Red Cabin porch, I “built” gnome …
JULY 22, 2O21 – What’s worse: a. The violent, January 6 attack on the Capitol; or b. Republicans’ continued support of a disordered former president, who called the unruly mob, “a loving crowd”? I say “b.” A country in which people who wield substantial political power will say and do anything to stay in the …
JULY 21, 2021 – If I were a physician and America my patient, the metaphorical conversation would go something like this . . . AMERICA: Tell me straight up, Doc. Am I gonna make it? ME: You’ve got lots of potentially life-threatening issues going on. AMERICA: I know. I feel very crappy, and lately I’ve …
JULY 20, 2021 – Yesterday evening I watched our five-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter attend “soccer practice.” This was her fifth week of the community sponsored activity. The kids learn some basic skills led by a couple of very laid-back “coaches” who excel at herding cats and squirrels. Our older son, Illiana’s dad and former soccer player, assists. …
JULY 18, 2021 – Deer are a danger. They feast on gardens and new pine shoots, and they’re all too eager to ambush motorists traveling on country roads. Deer total cars, and we see plenty of deer totaled by cars when we drive to the Red Cabin in northwest Wisconsin. One-mile stretch of highway is …
JULY 18, 2021 – Amidst catastrophic flooding in northern Europe, grave endangerment of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem, still raging fires in the West, continuing drought and record heat across half of North America, I’m pessimistic that we—humanity—can do enough in time to mitigate climate change materially or to adapt quickly enough to avoid its …
JULY 17, 2021 – Only when I was older and visiting the house in which I spent my first six years did I realize how steep the staircase was between the ground floor and the second story. I’m sure it wouldn’t comply with modern building codes. As I navigated up and down the stairs during …
JULY 16, 2021 – Grandpa had been a fisherman, as I knew from the rods and reels that hung on the back porch of the cabin. There was also the large fishing net that always got snagged on stuff in the green boat box down by the dock. Then there were his stories about canoe …
JULY 15, 2021 – Daily, I visit www.fox[propaganda].com. (I eschew the TV version, which competes shamelessly with even more bizarre media outlets like Newsmax and OAN (“One America News”).) Fox and its competitors on the right are more than irritants. They’re irresponsible, anti-social, destructive forces leveraging an influence loop for the sole and soulless sake …
JULY 14, 2021 – I like to photograph nature. Or rather, I like to frame scenes and objects within nature’s infinite collection of light, lines, color, and compositions. I remember seeing my mother, a painter, often forming a frame in the air with her thumbs and index fingers to “capture” a potential painting. I find …
JULY 13, 2021 – For today’s post, I’d intended to write about an observation quite apart from today’s appalling news. After several failed attempts, I yielded to the news. Yet my struggle wasn’t over. There’s the turmoil in Cuba and its root causes—a half-century trade embargo by the U.S. playing a much larger role than …
JULY 12, 2021 – Yesterday, British billionaire Richard Branson made a suborbital space flight. Media outlets made a big deal of it, thanks to the fact that Branson himself—self-promotor extraordinaire—made a big deal of it. The hoopla left me unimpressed. First, Branson wasn’t at the controls. He was a passenger—one of six. Second, although the …
JULY 11, 2021 – One of the downsides of nature is that it can get under your skin. I experienced this recently when a thorn spiked my finger—through leather gloves—as I cleared wild raspberry bushes from pine seedlings in my “tree garden.” After an expletive the sharp pain subsided. Later, I made my way back …
JULY 10, 2021 – Thursday evening on our way to the cabin, we stopped at the Beechmoor, a classic, northwest Wisconsin bar and grill. It’s at the south end of Whitefish Lake, which, as the water flows, is two lakes down from our own Grindstone Lake. The bar was crowded (vaccination cards, people?), and besides, …
JULY 9, 2021 – If I were an adversary of the United States, I’d be salivating over our current internal demise. Our self-destruction requires of our enemies, no outlandish military expenditure, no high-risk/low-probability-of-success sabotage, no complex of computer hackers, no advanced planning and expenditure of any kind; simply enough Americans—not even a majority—to believe their …
JULY 8, 2021 – Today is my spouse’s birthday. It’s not a “big one,” meaning it doesn’t end in a “zero,” but once you reach a certain stage in life, every birthday is “big,” as in, “I’ve made it ’round the sun again!” Paradoxically, every birthday is also “small,” as in, “Let’s celebrate this one …
JULY 7, 2021 – Amidst the latest heatwave in Minnesota, I sought relief by watching movies with extreme-winter scenes. Over the years, I’ve seen many films that feature ice, snow, and cold. Much of the snow was artificial—crushed marble in Dr. Zhivago, for example, and cornflakes painted white in It’s a Wonderful Life. For snowy …