Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JUNE 1, 2026 – (Cont.) I remember the time about a decade after I’d left the venerable St. Paul firm of Briggs & Morgan for greener pastures over in Minneapolis, when I had occasion to attend a business meeting in the same old First National Bank Building where Briggs still occupied five floors of the …
MAY 31, 2026 – (Cont.) At Logan maybe it was the hard plastic bins dropping down into the pick-up slots below the conveyor belt; OR . . . perhaps it was the young TSA man barking sharp directives with such volume they sounded like reprimands before I’d done anything wrong; OR . . . another …
MAY 29, 2026 – The intensity of today’s reunion activities revealed that yesterday’s engagements were in the wading end of the pool. Today we all swam in much deeper waters, starting with chatting up a storm over breakfast and in the case of seven of us, turning off the lights on the last conversations of …
MAY 28, 2026 – Today we climbed out of bed early to make the day-long trek from Minnesota to Maine (via Massachusetts) for my 50th college class reunion. To be truthful, four years ago when I first started hearing about plans for this occasion, my thoughts were focused on the pending stem cell transplant I …
MARCH 18, 2026 – Over the decade from 2009 to 2019, Sally Scoggin and I practiced law; separate firms, different practice areas but the same daily grind of . . . “billable hours.” During that same decade we spent many hundreds of additional hours—entirely non-billable—practicing repertoire for our annual “winter house concerts,” dubbed, “The Fiddler …
MARCH 12, 2026 – This past Monday’s post was entitled, “Why I Went to College.” Today I learned “Why I went to high school,” or more precisely as regards the latter, “Why I went to a particular high school.” Long-time subscribers to this blog are familiar with my connection to the Green Mountain State; specifically, …
MARCH 9, 2026 – It’s a question with multiple answers—broad and narrow: “Why did I go to college?” As is the case with the same basic question in other contexts, the answers can be approached from either side of the subject experience. For example, “Why did I go to Paris?” The “pre-answer”: “To see the …
DECEMBER 10, 2025 – Hug your loved ones—hug them tight and tell them you love them. Cherish your friends, and be generous with empathy. Embrace everything in life, even when it’s difficult. Over the past 36 hours, I’ve learned that L.I.F.E. is (among other things) an acronym for “Love,” “Irony,” “Friends,” and “Empathy.” I’ve also …
NOVEMBER 13, 2025 – This afternoon on my return from hill climbs in “Little Switzerland,” I espied my hearty friend and neighbor Fred corralling leaves in his well-attended yard of his well-appointed house. (When Beth and I were newbies to the neighborhood nearly 40 years ago, people referred to Fred and his late wife Carol’s …
NOVEMBER 7, 2025 – Just when I was searching for a topic for today’s post, one was handed to me on a proverbial silver platter, nicely polished, served by a butler in full livery. The delicacy on the platter can be best described by way of a simple mini-play with the working title, Actually Ashley. …
OCTOBER 7, 2025 – Over the years I’ve met numerous interesting people who live along my walking route to and from “Little Switzerland.”[1] With some of these folks I’ve enjoyed extensive conversations about a host of subjects. One standout is a fellow, Phillip, eight years my senior, whose house is on the “Matterhorn” overlooking the …
OCTOBER 4, 2025 – Today we and our Red Cabin guests awoke to unseasonably warm weather and a stiff breeze sweeping out of the south across the lake. Beth served from a large pot of coffee, while I fixed a breakfast of oatmeal and side dishes of fruit, nuts, and an assortment of natural sweeteners. …
SEPTEMBER 17, 2025 – “That’s why . . .” I said to our granddaughter while in the car on the way home today, “we shouldn’t take anyone for granted.” I’d just told her the real-life story below. “What does ‘take for granted mean’?” she asked. When I explained the idiom, she easily grasped the concept. …
AUGUST 3, 2025 – Yesterday, our nearest neighbor, “Rustic John,” and his next door neighbor on the other side, “Arbor Steve,” paid me a visit. They arrived on one of John’s dozen (it seems, but who’s counting?) workhorse vehicles; in this case, his EV “Club Car” with a “workbox” behind the two open seats. The …
JULY 13, 2025 – This afternoon I received a call from Erik Ibele. I hadn’t heard from him in several years and was pleasantly surprised when he announced himself. He’d called to inform me that his father, Warren E. Ibele, had died recently. Warren would have turned 101 next month. Erik and his three siblings, …
JULY 2, 2025 – (Cont.) On Friday evening, as we entered the last weekend of our extended vacation, we hosted our good friends and next door neighbors, Steve and Lin and their daughter Syd. Byron’s family joined us as well, of course, given how closely they’re connected to these exceptional people. Our not-quite-two grandson is …
JUNE 19, 2025 – My oldest sister once defined culture as “all the books you’ve read but can’t remember.” I might define civilization as “all the dinner and late-night conversations you have that you can remember the next morning.” By this definition, yesterday evening civilization was enriched and renewed as eight of us reveled in …
MAY 10, 2025 – Today my wealth—and that of my friends Matt and Ravi—increased beyond measure. By “wealth” I don’t mean how that term is typically defined and perceived in our society. I mean the sum of one’s hope, faith, love, and friendships. This remarkable increase in wealth was bestowed upon us by a most …
MAY 3, 2025 – THE PADDLEBOAT (Cont.) Wednesday at noon, I told Jeff we’d need to start packing up no later than three o’clock. The plan was to arrive home in time for a late supper, visit with Beth and my sister Jenny for a while, then retire by ten or eleven o’clock. We’d set …
MAY 2, 2025 THE POT (Cont.) As we rounded the corner of the back deck off the cabin, Jeff called my attention to several rotting planks and the fact that the feet of the 20-ton (for effect, I exaggerate, but only slightly) cauldron repurposed as a planter and sitting on the corner of the deck …
MAY 1, 2025 – (Cont.) After a lunch conversation during which we traded accounts of various quandaries that we’d faced in our legal careers, Jeff cleared the table and directed me to get my “stuff together” so that we could hit the ground running after he finished washing the dishes. As he ran the water …
APRIL 30, 2025 – Over the years we’ve had many guests at the Red Cabin. Very nearly all have been model visitors, who are good sports about most things and contribute admirably to the common welfare. Above and beyond these social conventions, a significant number of people have shown surprising initiative regarding various cabin projects. …
FEBRUARY 13, 2025 – Many of us have been left to wonder: “What’s next—[e.g.] now that Co-President Trump and Defense Minister Hegseth have demonstrated they skipped the class in Basic Introductory Negotiations 101 [redundancy fully intended to underscore the point] by showing their cards to Putin before the game to sell Ukraine down the river …
OCTOBER 21, 2024 – This morning in these parts, the sun peeked above the distant eastern shore of the lake at precisely 7:32. A good 20 minutes before, I’d slipped the kayak into the water and paddled quietly, effortlessly along our shoreline. I still felt like a free-floating spirit in a dream, gliding magically past …
SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 – Earlier this summer I constructed two wooden ramps to provide passage over two side-by-side fallen giants of the woods, each . . . two feet in diameter. The completed project looked simple enough, but in design and construction the operation required a fair among of engineering. As with most completed cabin …