Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
DECEMBER 18, 2023 – I know we live in a neighborhood of very decent people. Or more precisely, “I know we live in a neighborhood of very ‘Minnesota nice’ people”? Either way, the evidence is how local folks react to a particular “yard display” of . . . uh, Christmas decorations. If in the evening …
DECEMBER 15, 2023 – In this age of self realization I’m finally at liberty to publicly acknowledge a condition, an affliction that has long clouded my otherwise happy existence: From childhood to geezerhood I’ve suffered from a form of aural dyslexia. That I’ve “suffered” is probably a gross overstatement—so much so that such a characterization …
DECEMBER 7, 2023 – Late last night after a pleasant day filled with numerous wonders, I watched 20 minutes worth of the fourth Republican Presidential Debate (so called). DeSantis and Ramaswamy managed to set my hair on fire, while two or three times Chris Christie made me cheer out loud when calling out his colleagues …
DECEMBER 2, 2023 – As a tree hugger I suppose I’ve always been a hypocrite when it came to Christmas trees: at Yuletide—with kid-like glee—I revel in the arboreal grave lot by the supermarket. As the aromatic Fraser and balsam firs, Scotch and white pine gasp their last into the December air, I’m filled with …
DECEMBER 24, 2022 – Grandpa Nilsson was a fairly serious guy, though he often kidded my sisters and me and laughed at his own jokes. At Christmas he injected a bit of scatological levity into the spirit of things. “’Twas the night before Christmas,” he’d say, “when all through the house, not a creature was …
DECEMBER 14, 2022 – With less than two weeks before Christmas, I’m well into my annual panic over what to buy my spouse. My panic increases each time I see under the tree, another present bearing the tag, “To Eric.” I wanted to write about this panic phenomenon, but in researching the origins of the …
DECEMBER 8, 2022 – I’m not a religious person, but I like Christmas for all its traditions, religious and secular. My personal Christmas music traditions are: 1. Playing by ear on the piano, four or five traditional carols; and 2. While working on my laptop, listening to various YouTube versions of Handel’s Messiah. I know …
DECEMBER 25, 2021 – My mother, who exercised her faith . . . religiously . . . once said, “It’s all in the hymns. All you need to know is in the hymns.” It was an off-handed remark expressed in the moment, not some serious conclusion resulting from a long course of study. Doubtless she …
DECEMBER 24, 2021 – On this Christmas Eve I write with greater urgency than ever before. If great theoretical physicists and mathematicians play with the science of time and great philosophers and theologians wrestle with a metaphysical construct of time, each of us must face the hard-edged reality of time. A cosmic force beyond our …
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 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 31, 2020 – Left to my own devices, I’d be one of those people who leaves the plastic, illuminated Santa on the roof year-round . . . or at least until all the snow melted, which in these parts would be around April Fools’ Day. Fortunately for the neighbors, I’m rarely left to my …
DECEMBER 26, 2020 – My mother never failed to make me laugh when she laughed at the joke about the guy on the bus with carrots sticking out of his ears and who says, “I can’t hear you, I’ve got carrots sticking out of my ears,” when a fellow passenger tells him he has carrots …
DECEMBER 26, 2020 – This Christmas Santa went all out. Under the tree he left an envelope wishing my wife a “Merry Christmas!” Inside the envelope was a fish card; that is, a nice card featuring a fine painting of a northern pike. The card happened to be remarkably similar to “fish” cards my brothers-in-law …