Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
OCTOBER 5, 2026 – Over the years, a salient bonus of my daily walks to, in and from nearby “Little Switzerland” is my conversations with people along the way. Yesterday’s encounter is a classic example. It occurred on the (par 5) 8th tee, which sits on a high plateau looking due east down the fairway …
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 – (Cont.) For out-of-towners visitors, the skyways throughout downtown Minneapolis (and St. Paul, though St. Paul is a hollowed-out remnant of its more vibrant condition a generation or more ago) are an unusual and interesting feature. These second-floor walkways over downtown streets connect 150 buildings on nearly 80 blocks and are over …
SEPTEMBER 24, 2026 – (Cont.) This morning Jim and I left the Red Cabin and headed back to the Twin Cities for a whirlwind tour of a few highlights. Jim’s wife (not with us) had requested that he visit and photograph three sites: 1. The Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall; 2. The Renee …
SEPTEMBER 10, 2026 – I’m an optimist. And perhaps an unrealistic one: I keep hoping that by hanging out with real writers, I stand a better chance of becoming one myself. Okay, okay—in part I jest: My writing buddy, Erik Hansen, would be my friend even if he weren’t one of the finest writers I’ve …
SEPTEMBER 4, 2026 – In tomorrow’s post, I’ll describe in spellbinding detail, the latest cabin-project that gave impetus to my reluctantly but fortunately executed trek into town yesterday. It was that short journey, however, that led to interactions providing material for this post. We’ve all heard people say, “Things happen for a reason.” I’m not …
SEPTEMBER 2, 2026 – Friends and acquaintances who know where we live often ask us—particularly around the time of the Minnesota State Fair—how we in “the heights” adapt to traffic at fair time. Our response is that it’s not all that bad—though this year, while crossing the street at the end of our typically quiet …
AUGUST 31, 2026 – The other day while our son’s family was visiting from out of town, my son, grandson and I were left to our own devices. I was about to suggest an outing to Como Zoo and Conservatory, but Byron beat me to it. “Dad, how ’bout we go to the zoo?” he …
AUGUST 30, 2026 – We’re now in the middle of “State Fair Season” in our small town—Falcon Heights, Minnesota, population, 5,369. Every year, the “heights,” as I sometimes call it (tongue in cheek), is at the height of its powers from the 12th day before Labor Day through that holiday, when around two million people …
AUGUST 23, 2026 – As a daily blogger of a site featuring “[o]riginal anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification,” I’m always on the lookout for subject matter, but sometimes the subject matter finds me. Today was one of those occasions—inside a Walmart store, no less. At a little past three this afternoon, it was announced …
JULY 13, 2026 – With my mug of morning Java, I sat on the dock before the sun emerged from its lair behind the bend in the shoreline to the east. A warm breeze out of the south turned the lake into a sea of diamonds except in my immediate venue, where the trees and …
JULY 3, 2026 – (Cont.) A little before 4:00 I pulled up to Sally’s house. Outside were three people—a man and two women, all of my approximate vintage—chatting next to a car. The man was leaning his arm over the top of an open car door, and one of the women appeared to be about …
JULY 1, 2026 – (Cont.) When I first met Tim, he was in his late 20s, maybe 30; a reformed paleo-archeologist with a masters degree from the University of Tübingen. I was impressed when years later he showed me his thesis paper—all in German. I didn’t understand a word of it, but I no trouble …
JUNE 30, 2026 – One thing I’ve learned in life is to make sure my fly is closed and I’m not wearing ketchup on my tie when reading the riot act to someone. Years ago I witnessed that exact situation on the part of a particularly obnoxious lawyer with whom I was acquainted. Slovenly on …
JUNE 22, 2026 -(Cont.) At 10:00 on Saturday morning, the expeditionary force hiked the three-quarters of a mile to the T for the ride to Chinatown, where we alighted for the short walk to the Boston Common and the start of the famous Freedom Trail. But first we ambled around Boston’s glorious park that comprises …
JUNE 18, 2026 – Today I barely glanced at news headlines, and I embarked on no conversations with anyone about anything of substance in the realm of worldly matters beyond some basic issues of business law. Instead, I followed the lead of our grandchildren—and their grandmother, who has a better sense than I for how …
JUNE 17, 2026 – In a big city with a sprawling subway or underground public transit system—London, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, New York—the experience is similar: you descend down one large hole in the ground, board a train, ride a few stops, return to the surface of the earth and . . . Regardez! You’ve wound …
JUNE 16, 2026 – Today we sojourners followed our guides at a leisurely pace to bustling Midtown. I never tire of going there and watching the swarming tourists, businesspeople, shop workers, shop patrons, delivery persons, traffic and traffic police—all participants in the wondrous interchange of goods and services that make up . . . the …
JUNE 15, 2026 – Today, Beth, our 10-year-old-granddaughter and I boarded a train bound for “the City.” Bits of conversation, long views out the window, a medium-length snooze, a Chekhov short story, and an even shorter cab ride . . . took us to our destination. The main elevator to the apartment is being overhauled, …
JUNE 14, 2026 – Our “Connecticut son” has a large mower to go with his family’s large yard. He also has a large garage for storing the large mower, but as he has learned about space in the context of home ownership, the homeowner never has enough of it. In other words, he discovered that …
JUNE 13, 2026 – Recently, my daily walk took me past a school playground on the opposite side of the street. It was recess time, and on the near side of the playground a group of fifth or sixth grade boys and girls were kicking a ball around. I’d say “soccer” ball, except it looked …
MAY 17, 2026 – “Seventeenth of May.” Though I’m of Swedish heritage, I have no problem celebrating Syttende Mai—”Seventeenth of May”—in honor of the Norwegians’ Constitution Day (1814), which marked the country’s independence from Denmark. After all, though my wife’s paternal grandmother was Swedish, as was mine, her paternal grandfather was Norwegian, just as my …
MAY 15, 2026 – Departing the big city at 9:30 this morning, I enjoyed a beautiful spring drive to the Red Cabin. Once there, After unloading the car and wolfing down lunch, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon hosing off the screens, letting them dry in the zephyr off the lake, then hauling …
MAY 13, 2026 – Yesterday evening my wife and I joined a third of the population of the Twin Cities, it seemed, inside a middle school gymnasium for . . . an orchestra concert. The performers were fourth-through-sixth grade string players from each of the district’s half-dozen elementary schools. Included among the fourth-grade violinists was …
MAY 3, 2026 – This morning we—the two “work camp badge winners” from yesterday, and I as work camp director—wrestled with a first world problem while the rest of the world wrangled with real world problems. Our “first world problem” was the broken but still attached tree trunk dangling like the sword of Damocles or, …
APRIL 24, 2026 – Late this afternoon I visited our local compost site—after Beth had already hauled a load of leaves to the place earlier in the day. My assigned task was first to corral an unorganized collection of shrub clippings, birch branches, dead day lilies raked out of the garden, and last December’s Tannenbaum …