Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
FEBRUARY 13, 2026 – Today a wholly clear smooth on-time uneventful two-hour and seven-minute Delta flight took us from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Hartford . . . to visit our two-and-a-half year old grandson, his new baby sister . . . and their parents. The 90 minutes in MSP terminal were a reminder that perhaps I …
JANUARY 4, 2026 – Yesterday, our old-fashioned mail delivery service dropped into the mail slot of our old-fashioned house, an old-style letter envelope containing two ancient letters and two postcards of the same vintage as the two very old letters. On the face of one of the postcards was a Post-It Note bearing the handwriting …
DECEMBER 30, 2025 – Throughout my childhood I was dragged to concerts by our parents and grandparents and accompanied by my all-too-willing sisters. Invariably, Dad would grade soloists on their stage presence; that is, whether they engaged in distracting histrionics. When it came to the actual music, no one could rival Dad’s discerning ears, but …
DECEMBER 25, 2025 – People who know me well would likely doubt that for a brief time I went through a football phase. Documentary evidence of this improbable stage of my life takes the form of a letter to Santa that by pure coincidence of timing—today being Christmas Day—I rediscovered in a box full of …
DECEMBER 23, 2025 – The regular reader knows by now that I’m a compulsive student of history. Just as some folks are obsessed with NFL football or college basketball (or as I used to be, with major league baseball), I’m zeroed in on “what happened and why” in previous chapters of civilization. What is the …
DECEMBER 22, 2025 – (Cont.) While pulling music from my music cabinet in search of “candidates” for the 50th reunion memorial service, I found many of the pieces I’d performed in the “Fiddler UNDER the Roof” concerts—lots of Bach; the Beethoven “Romances”; “Havanaise” and “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” by Camille Saint-Saëns; “Praeludium and Allegro” by …
DECEMBER 21, 2025 – I’m no gardener, though I’ve enjoyed modest success in cultivating basil, my favorite herb. I know plenty of gardeners, however, and I enjoy and fully appreciate the colorful (and tasty) results of their efforts, dedication, knowledge, and expertise. Ditto cooking: I’m no chef, though I can boil water without wrecking the …
DECEMBER 19, 2025 – Today our fourth-grade granddaughter asked me what is the biggest holiday of the year. “In America or in the world?” I asked. “The world.” I was fairly certain it was Christmas, but just to be sure, I searched online. Christmas it was (according to several reputable sites—take my word for it). …
DECEMBER 16, 2025 – Last week I received a new assignment from a favorite business client—the kind that sends good work and allows me to interact with really good people. Without exception, they’re smart, respectful, conscientious, reasonable, interesting, and in the motivational department, appreciative. This latest assignment involved the threshold task of reviewing documents, starting …
NOVEMBER 30, 2025 – Over the past week, my wife and I have become well acquainted with our two-year-old grandson’s expanding toy collection. As I’ve already noted, he’s well into his truck phase, which includes a full complement of cranes, plows, dozers, and excavating machines. He also plays hard with his Duplos and waxed cardboard …
NOVEMBER 20, 2025 – The man looked about my age, maybe older, since he was engaged in a way that I would ascribe to someone who was fully retired and, well, definitely older than I am. He was wearing headphones and waders with a skirt of pouches and moving slowly in waters just beyond the …
NOVEMBER 12, 2025 – When I was a kid, Dad bought a fancy-shmancy lawn sweeper to replace the rake that he’d used every previous fall. It was from Sears Roebuck, which meant he had to assemble it himself. I remember watching him pull the parts out of a large cardboard carton labeled, “Craftsman” and assemble …
NOVEMBER 10, 2025 – Yesterday I partook in one of life’s great pleasures—in the pleasant company of our 10-year old granddaughter, attending a concert of masterpieces performed by world class musicians. It was somewhat of a last-minute operation. One of my sisters had asked me Thursday if I’d be interested in joining her and our …
NOVEMBER 6, 2025 – Today Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that beginning Friday, commercial flights in the U.S. will be reduced by 5,000 a day each day until 10% of pre-reduction volume is achieved. The ultimate impetus for this action is the government shutdown. As I watched the 10-second clip of Mr. Duffy delivering his …
OCTOBER 23, 2025 – No person alive knows for sure when and why Mother developed her “nervous tic,” as my sisters and I learned to call it, because that’s what Mother herself called it. Given her glamorous appearance in her high school yearbook picture and the photos that graced her and Dad’s wedding album—not to …
OCTOBER 19, 2025 – (Cont.) I’m sure I could’ve coaxed some meaningful cash out of Timothy in exchange for what was a work of shop art. In the moment, however, I decided to let him have it, gratis. In the first place, no one in the family would ever use the bulky machine, and eventually, …
OCTOBER 17, 2025 – (Cont.) At exactly the appointed time, an older burgundy RAM-Tough pick-up pulling a small trailer pulled up to the cabin. Out stepped a couple of guys from the reservation. The driver introduced himself as “Timothy,” with whom I’d spoken twice by phone to make arrangements. His handshake exuded confidence and character. …
OCTOBER 16, 2025 – Today the past was the present. By way of background, late this morning I drove up to the Red Cabin/Björnholm to meet a prospective buyer of miscellaneous old equipment that has been parked/stored at Björnholm for years beyond accurate count by anyone in the family. My brother-in-law Chuck had tentatively sold …
OCTOBER 2, 2025 – (Cont.) Our family’s weekend routine back in those days was to leave for the lake as soon as I arrived home from work and changed out of my “lawsuit,” as our older son, Corydon, called my sartorial norm. To hasten our departure, Beth would have the car packed and ready to …
OCTOBER 1, 2025 – Progressive Insurance has long entertained us with a brilliant ad campaign featuring the fictitious “Dr. Rick,” who conducts seminars to help new homeowners avoid turning into their parents. Of course, we Boomers, especially, laugh at these vignettes because they remind us of ourselves—and our parents. Today while working on the cabin …
SEPTEMBER 27, 2025 – Fifty years from now, historians studying our era will try to tease out the underlying ingredients and catalysts and analyze their interactions. I say 50 years, because as the great German historian, Leopold von Ranke (1795 – 1886) purportedly advocated, no history worth reading can be written without the perspective of …
SEPTEMBER 23, 2025 – Yesterday, for anticipated entertainment value akin to watching the trailer for the latest blockbuster monster movie, I Googled “Charlie Kirk funeral.” As with a horror film, I had no intention—or stomach—for watching anything besides brief excerpts, especially when I saw the duration of the production digitally-displayed in the corner—over five (!) …
SEPTEMBER 19, 2025 – Among other books I’m currently reading, I’ve been chipping away at a travel guide that my wife had picked up at a thrift shop many years ago and that had somehow resurfaced recently. It’s called, Asia Overland – A Practical Economy – Minded Guide to the Exotic Wonders of the East …
AUGUST 30, 2025 – (Cont.) My second memorable experience with an invalid assumption occurred two years later. By way of background . . . I was still very much embattled over the violin: my parents wanted me to study it seriously, whereas I wanted nothing to do with it. But by now things had gotten …
AUGUST 29, 2025 – Life nowadays, it seems, is a grand tour through the land of false assumptions, from RFK, Jr’s nonsense science to the Pyrite President’s belief that all that glitters is gold, even if it’s not even fool’s gold but painted plastic and marked “Made in China.” But I must say that my …