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 …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXX – “The Moores – Part 2”
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 …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXIX – “The Moores – Part 1”
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 …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXIX – “Our Successors – Part 4”
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 …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXVIII – “Our Successors – Part 3”
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 …
(BACK TO) THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXVII – “Our Successors – Part 2”
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 …
ZEN AND THE ART OF DOCK INSTALLATION (PART III)
MAY 14, 2024 – (Cont.) Saturday’s nearly six hours of heavy labor left me feeling as I had every time after skiing the 52km American Birkebeiner Ski Marathon. I was so utterly exhausted, my walk was down to a shuffle. I was afraid to lie down for fear I wouldn’t be able to get back …
ZEN AND THE ART OF DOCK INSTALLATION (Part II)
MAY 13, 2024 – (Cont.) Although I know the basic rules of chess, I’m no chess player, and on the few occasions when I’ve humored an actual chess player among extended family members, my lack of skill has become evident within my first three moves. Yet I have an immense appreciation for chess, which, as …
ZEN AND THE ART OF DOCK INSTALLATION
MAY 12, 2024 – Blogger’s Note: This post is yet another interruption of The Neighbors series. The title of this immediate post (and tomorrow’s) is a reference to Maynard Pirsig’s philosophical discourse in chronicling his “oneness” with a motorcycle on a wind-in-his face trip across big sky country of the American West. Likewise, “Zen and the …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXVI – “Our Successors – Part 1”
MAY 11, 2024 – During moving day in August 1961, our family became next door neighbors of ourselves. A year or two before, my parents had purchased the adjacent vacant lot from our neighbor Dr. Spurzem a few doors down and spent months planning their dream home. I remember well the process. Late into the …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXV – “The Violets”
MAY 10, 2024 – Next to the Holland cottage was the Violet compound occupying the sweeping rounded corner where the west end of Rice Street and the south end of Levee Avenue blended together. As the maxim of real estate valuation goes, “location, location, location.” Though the lot was across the street from the Mississippi, …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXIV – “The Norwegian Hollands”
MAY 9, 2024 – Next door (upstream along the Mississippi River) to Caines lived the Moores. The parents, Fred and Ruth, were smart, sharp, kind, cultured, and civic minded, and from my perspective, their impressive house and yard reflected their well-deserved reputation as pillars of the community. I’ll save them for last. For now, I’ll …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXIII – “The Caines” – Part 3
MAY 8, 2024 – (Cont.) On warm weather afternoons Bill would stroll down the driveway to retrieve the mail. Hanging from a crosspiece was a wooden square bearing the family name below a silhouetted hunter, gun raised toward silhouetted ducks flying across the top of square. If Bill wasn’t an avid worker, he was an …
THE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXII (“The Caines” – Part 2)
MAY 7, 2024 – (Cont.) Caines also owned two Labradors—a black and a yellow. Back in those days dogs enjoyed far more freedom than is the case today. Stormy, the black Lab, wandered freely, at least in our immediate section of the neighborhood. He never took a bite out of my lip, but his size …
MORE NEIGHBORS – CHAPTER XXI – “The Caines – Part I”
MAY 6, 2024 – Next door to Bob Ehlen lived the Caines—Bill and Molly and their three kids—whose grounds and household were as scruffy and unorganized as Bob Ehlen’s were well manicured and buttoned-down. Our old house at Rice and Green faced the Caine chaos, which was perpetually in session. The center of their three-ring …
TAKIN’ A WALK ON MERCURY
MAY 5, 2024 – Recently I tried to imagine the experience of a 10- to 15-minute stroll on the surface of Mercury, our solar system’s inner-most planet. My “what if” thought was inspired by what Dava Sobel has so to say about it in her acclaimed book, The Planets. The key features of the speedy …
BACK TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD (CHAPTER XX – “Bob Ehlen”)
MAY 4, 2024 – Before we moved to our new house at 505 Rice from our old house next door at the corner of Green and Rice, I hung out a lot right there at the corner street sign. I remember well the day a few weeks short of first grade when I figured out …
A PERFORMANCE BY TWO AMPHIBIANS
MAY 3, 2024 – Among my favorite children’s books when our sons were young were the Frog and Toad stories by Arnold Lobel. I enjoyed the illustrations, the writing, and the story lines. The books experienced a revival in our home when our eight-year-old granddaughter reached reading age. They are certain to be enjoyed as …
THE ELITE LAWYER AND . . . WWLD?
MAY 2, 2024 – Back in the day when lawyers wrote with a golden nib and spoke with a silver tongue, no member of the bar thought about marketing or advertising. In fact, until I entered law school in the 1976 of the Current Era (with emphasis on Current) advertising was strictly verboten. Part of …
WHAT IS TO BE LEARNED FROM WHAT WE KNOW
MAY 1, 2024 – Last week as I joined the other passengers inching our way down the entrance ramp onto the Delta plane that would fly us from BDL to MSP, I noticed the checkered condition of the paint on the outside of the fuselage around the doorway. Obviously, the A320-200 had been in service …
GNATS, LEECHES, AND AN UPROOTED TREE
APRIL 30, 2024 – I looked forward to writing today’s post. Having junked out on news reports about current events—everything from the war on Gaza to the college campus protests to the Hush Money Trial to what planet Bill Barr is on—I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say …
IN THE CATSKILLS I CAME OUT OF MY SARTORIAL CAVE
APRIL 29, 2024 – Recently, five of us from our clan attended a wedding and reception just outside of the little ski resort town of Windham in the Catskills. The bride was the daughter of the legendary “Cliff” from my Inheritance series posted last summer right here on this blogsite. For me wedding was a …
THE STATE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION: ANOTHER BREAK IN THE ACTION
APRIL 28, 2024 – It being a Sunday morning, I poured myself a cup of Java, repaired to the reading room, leaned back in my easy(-going) chair, put on some very dead white guy music, and last but best . . . pulled up the Sunday edition of The Times on my laptop screen. Ah-h-h! …
BACK TO THE NEIGHBORS (PART XIX – “The Doctors” – Part 2)
APRIL 27, 2024 – (Cont.) Dr. Borrud, his wife Shirley and their three daughters—Lori, Aleta, and Becky—replaced the Spurzems in the Tudor house. The stolid Norwegian doctor, a founding member of the American Academy of Family Medicine, was just 10 days older than my dad. Recruited to the (modern) clinic on Main Street at the …
BEAR WITH ME AS I BARE A PERSONAL CONFLICT, NOW RESOLVED
APRIL 26, 2024 – We live in the Age of Opinion, or more precisely, the Age of Cacophonous Opinion—informed, uninformed and misinformed; often in one-off unorganized bursts, sometimes in regular outrages devoured by legions of subscribers gathered by a common algorithm; scattered to the crosswinds of social media yet occasionally framed according to logic and …