Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
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 …
AUGUST 16, 2026 – We tend to idealize about the past, complain about the present, and worry about the future. All too often I find myself in this three-way rut in life, though sometimes I scramble these, complaining about the past, idealizing about the future and worrying about the present. Take the family cabin experience, …
AUGUST 14, 2026 – (Cont.) In a nutshell . . . my epiphany, as it were, was about the rightwing perception of America as a (formerly) wonderful place that has lost its way, thanks the tentacles of a Communist plot, and the counterbalancing leftwing view that America was never such a wonderful place, given our …
AUGUST 13, 2026 – You never know when an epiphanic moment is going to hit you. It could be while you’re out for a walk or on your drive to meet another couple for dinner. Or on the way home from the dinner, as you mull over a particularly compelling part of the conversation, especially …
AUGUST 6, 2026 – Today marks my last day as a 71-year-old. Reciting such a banal fact allows me to join the dull chorus of Boomers who, in conjunction with citing their age, just can’t resist saying, “I can’t believe I’m . . .” No, I won’t complete the sentence. Instead, I’ll throw a contrarian’s …
JULY 30, 2026 – Early this morning I stepped outside the back door of the old cabin and strolled around to the front for a view of the lake. Sunbeams filtered through the trees to the east, signaling positive prospects for the day ahead. The air was already warm and a bit hazy but not …
JULY 29, 2026 – After dispensing with legal work—in which I experienced the satisfaction that accompanies “break-throughs”—I turned to my oft-mentioned project of late, construction of my model sailboat fleet. Most of today’s effort was devoted to intricate rigging, necessitating reliance on “cheaters,” pincer-nosed pliers and small-motor coordination. After hoisting main and jib on the …
JULY 28, 2026 – Today the waters parted long enough to allow for painting the “sails,” tiller, splashboard and hull trim of another vessel of my model sailboat-from-wood-scraps fleet. This one was particularly tricky—it’s dual colored (for a husband-and-wife crew among the guests we’ll be hosting at the Red Cabin in August) and required an …
JULY 27, 2026 – This morning my wife and I attended to a bit of familial “crisis management.” The good news is that we were able to discharge our parental duties by phone from the porch of the Red Cabin. With this priority temporarily addressed, I was able to return to my next priority: earning …
JULY 4, 2026 – To be honest, for me, the Bicentennial was a much bigger deal than the Semiquincentennial.[1] This inverted perspective is counter-intuitive: after all, “a quarter of a millennium” (or “half of half a millennium”) is much grander-sounding than “two centuries.” If celebration at the 200-year mark years warranted a few extra “bombs …
JUNE 26, 2026 – The most famous opening line in British literature is, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, …
JUNE 25, 2026 – (Cont.) Our son Byron deserves special credit for having placed the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum on our expedition’s itinerary. It’s not a destination I would’ve included—though not because of any negative bias or lack of interest. Byron himself had never expressed a particular interest in JFK or his legacy, …
JUNE 24, 2026 – (Cont.) The historical capstone to our Beantown expedition was an all too short morning-long visit to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on the UMass campus along the Charles River. Since the library and museum opened the year after I graduated from college, I excused myself for never having …
JUNE 23, 2026 – (Cont.) Despite all the time I spent in Boston during my undergraduate days and on my many visits thereafter, I’d never walked the Freedom Trail. It was the brainchild of William Schofield, a columnist for the Boston Herald. He proposed it in a column in March 1951, and just three months …
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 12, 2026 – (Cont.) Anxiety: My Violin – Part I. Back in January I noticed an imperfection in my A string[1]. Often this is a sign the fine-wire binding around the string is about to unravel. When this occurs, nothing can be done except to replace the string. Easy enough, except . . . …
JUNE 11, 2026 – (Cont.) After the service, one of our “sustainability” classmates, Ellen Shuman (see my 6/8 post), asked if I’d been “nervous” playing my violin up there at the front of the chapel nave crowded with heavy hearts and meditative minds. “No,” I said. Which is not to say that in the months …
JUNE 10, 2026 – (Cont.) I trust that readers who’ve stayed aboard the good ship Reunion for this extended cruise will leave the flares where they’re stowed and indulge me further—through this pre-penultimate “Reunion” post and the concluding two posts, as I describe the full “denouement” of my 50th college class reunion. The Remembrance and …
JUNE 9, 2026 – (Cont.) As the reunion itself unfolded, I realized what an impossible agenda—or more precisely, agendae—it encompassed. On the one hand, each attendee confronted the enormously complex process of reestablishing connections with dozens, even scores of old friends and acquaintances, plus other classmates and spouses. I personally interacted directly (to varying degrees) …
JUNE 8, 2026 – (Cont.) Out of a class of approximately 340 students at an old (est. 1794) New England liberal arts college, all of said students having passed the admission matrix established by the legendary Director of Admissions, Richard Moll, with the able assistance of his right-hand man, the inimitable Richard “Mers” Mersereau, there …
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 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 …
MAY 27, 2026 – It is in our nature, I guess, that when the Northwind blows, forcing us to pull our collars up and walk with folded arms to trap more body heat, we complain about the cold. Yet, when the tables are turned and the Southwind sends its hot and humid breath across the …
MAY 25, 2026 – This morning after breakfast and Java, I sat at the log dining table at the Red Cabin, pecking away at correspondence on my laptop. Facing the lake exactly 75 feet from the windows, I periodically looked up to check on the scenery. A splendid breeze frolicked across the two-mile fetch from …