Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
NOVEMBER 28, 2024 – I remember when 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, first hit the theaters. At the time I was a freshman at Sterling School, a small boarding school in Craftsbury Common, a hilltop hamlet tucked away in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. There was no theater in our little village, …
NOVEMBER 11, 2024 – Today the world rotated yet again and made all of us a day older. In my own little corner of the globe I experienced enough to fill at least two episodes of the current season of my imaginary Netflix series. Otherwise put . . . to capture for posterity the details …
OCTOBER 10, 2024 – If I’m anything like the next person, there’s reason to worry about the next person. All my life I’ve continually tried to step outside myself, my quirks and confines, thoughts and ideas, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, mostly to turn back and see how I come across to myself. This is a challenging …
AUGUST 22, 2024 – Blogger’s note: A hectic travel schedule and other distractions and diversions—including the DNC—have temporarily interrupted my writing cadence. Moreover, the post that I’d intended for yesterday fell flat, as did another one for today. Neither made the cut and thus produced another gap in my blog. I’m still in travel mode, …
JULY 23, 2024 – From the publisher: Eric is on assignment gathering material for this blog. His postings will continue tomorrow. Stay tuned . . . and in tune. Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. © 2024 by Eric Nilsson
JULY 6, 2024 – Through personal hell and high water, for nearly five years straight I’ve not missed a single day of posting on this blog . . . until the day before yesterday. I cannot erase this gap, but I can explain it. No remarkable circumstances caused the break, but the interruption produced “material” …
JUNE 8, 2024 – Here I sit, halfway in the sun, halfway in the shade, watching the big parade of cumulus clouds drift slowly but purposefully overhead. Like a vast armada with sails hoisted to the heavens, their crews look down on us earthbound admirers and occasionally wave. You can tell the ships of the …
MAY 31, 2024 – What light was filtering through the thick overcast was now fading, and as I walked along the woodland path, I mistook the sound of rain—which I did not feel, being well-attired against mosquitoes—for wind until the shining leaves moved not in concert but individually, like a sea of uncoordinated bobble-heads plunked …
MAY 27, 2024 – This time of year is “birthday week” for our two sons, Cory (May 23) and Byron (May 27). When Cory turned one, 37 years ago, I started the tradition of writing, then reading aloud, a birthday letter, which summarized highlights of the previous year and imparted encouragement for the year ahead. …
MAY 25, 2024 – (Cont.) In the morning of May 25, Dan and I found our way to the Dalkon Shield Settlement Claims Administration facility occupying a full city block in downtown Richmond. On hand to greet us was Mike Sheppard. I remember him well even without the aid of my journal. He engaged with …
MAY 24, 2024 – The other day while in conversation with our eight-year-old granddaughter about writing, she asked me how many diaries I had. “Lots,” I said. “Ten?” she asked, seeking greater precision from me. “More than that. If I had to guess, probably several dozen.” “You should count ’em,” she said. We then went …
MAY 14, 2024 – (Cont.) Saturday’s nearly six hours of heavy labor left me feeling as I had every time after skiing the 52km American Birkebeiner Ski Marathon. I was so utterly exhausted, my walk was down to a shuffle. I was afraid to lie down for fear I wouldn’t be able to get back …
MARCH 16, 2024 – Eventually, war stories go the way of war: they end by exhaustion. That’s a bit how I felt yesterday after concluding Chapter Thirteen – “New Beginnings” of my series War Stories. I have many more “war stories,” but if I’ve tired of telling them, surely my (dwindling) readership has tired of …
NOVEMBER 30, 2023 – For readers who’ve followed this blog since June 1, I’ve managed daily postings of two memoirs; writing projects with ample material that simply required assembly. Each day I reviewed plans, gathered parts, and applied tools to the task. Never did I experience “writer’s block.” Today, however, I find myself without map …
DECEMBER 10, 2022 – When I started this project on April 14, 2018, I had high hopes that I could run round the writing track daily for 200 days. Based on a self-imposed daily limit of 500 words, 200 days would net 100,000 words—the equivalent of a modest length book (not including preface, index and …
JANUARY 3, 2022 – We’ve all seen an old war movie in which the hero—a pilot or soldier anticipating battle—caresses a small, black-and-white snapshot of a loved one. It’s always a single photo; never a three-inch-thick photo album, let alone a modern flash drive with 10,000 images. Likewise with writing: stuffed into the pilot’s/soldier’s uniform …
DECEMBER 28, 2021 – Yesterday, I’d just pulled some old journals off my shelf, when friend/neighbor, “K.O.” Paulson stopped by to check on me. I’ve posted about him before—a smart, thoroughly amusing, tough-talking, literary savant/retired honors English teacher, and former baseball/basketball coach, who scouts locally for the Twins. I gave K.O. the current, unvarnished low-down—to …
NOVEMBER 24, 2021 – I admit that writing a book review after reading a single chapter is as premature as reviewing a five-course meal after the appetizer. However, sometimes the writing—or dining—is so extraordinary, the reviewer feels equipped to express early admiration. The book, in this case, is Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. Several years …
AUGUST 30, 2021 – The other day, my sister Jenny wrote a funny email to our other three sisters and me, describing the big music show in Central Park that Hurricane Henri cut short. As I chuckled at her descriptions of Andrea Bocelli, Jennifer Hudson, and Barry Manilow, I thought, Who will save this email? …
FEBRUARY 4, 2021 – If for no other reason, this blog serves as a mental exercise—for the writer, as well as the reader. Each day I must think of a topic, assemble thoughts about it, organize those them into sentences, then pare them down to 500 words. You the reader must then exercise your mind …
AUGUST 11, 2019 – Last Monday I posted my 100th story on this blog site. That’s 50,000 words—one-half of an average length novel. So far, so good . . . or maybe not “so” good, but just “okay” good. If you’ve been reading my posts, I hope you’ve enjoyed them. I’ve certainly enjoyed writing them. At this …
JUNE 6, 2019 – For eighth grade English I had Mr. Howe, the wrestling coach. Reliable sources reported that he was an excellent coach. I could attest that he was a superb teacher. When he included the lyrics to The Sounds of Silence in our poetry unit, he became everyone’s favorite teacher. He was soft-spoken, and …