EAST MONTPELIER – We’ve all seen this at one time or another. Russet dry maple leaves raked into a pile for collection, lying quietly, till suddenly a zephyr seemingly from nowhere stirs them into a live, rustling mass. Then a stronger puff takes a whack at them, and the top[Read More…]
Willem Lange
I watch her watching
EAST MONTPELIER – The apocalyptic traffic predicted for the last day of the Memorial Day weekend hadn’t become evident before Kiki and I covered the three hours and change from the North Shore back to Montpelier. As usual, I emptied everything temporary out of the car, put the leftovers from[Read More…]
Nowadays it’s most likely a Sharpie
EAST MONTPELIER – Charles Dickens, as most of us have read, went to work in a boot-black factory at the age of twelve to help with his family’s expenses after his father, John Dickens, had been sentenced to debtor’s prison. The factory, not surprisingly, was in a sagging, tumbledown old[Read More…]
The first casualty of war
EAST MONTPELIER – Is the Strait of Hormuz open or not? If it is at all, whose ships are allowed to pass through it? Is the American blockade of Iranian ports still in effect? How many ships and aircraft have we committed to expressing our displeasure with Iran? What’s the daily[Read More…]
Walking on water
EAST MONTPELIER – A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the luxurious digs I called home during one summer of the 1950s, and suggested that there was another story involved. There certainly was. Old George Lamb, who cooked for our work party up at the Ausable Lakes, heard that I[Read More…]
Locals taking potshots at you
EAST MONTPELIER – One of the most New England of poems was published by James Russell Lowell in 1864. “The Courtin” became popular enough to be published subsequently as a separate volume, with period-type illustrations by none other than Winslow Homer. A charming story, it depicts perfectly the knots that[Read More…]
Joining the human race
EAST MONTPELIER – Summer, 1958. I was in temporary remission from higher education and looking for work. I possessed a copy of “On the Road” that I read rather as a bible. I still have it; it’s about eight feet behind me on the bookshelf. I was driving a 1946 Plymouth sedan[Read More…]
Bored with the details
EAST MONTPELIER – Whatever happened to the idyllic idea of living in our houses by the side of the road and being a friend to people? Whatever happened to listening to Walter Cronkite talk about the main story of the day? Ending with “And that’s the way it is.” Poor[Read More…]
Here’s where my amazement began
EAST MONTPELIER – As I age, I’m more and more frequently amazed at the complexity of various systems and the genius it must have taken to design and build them. The loop-the-loop highways of Montreal, Boston and Los Angeles are one example. Though much cursed, reviled and lampooned, it’s hard[Read More…]
“Gee!” I exclaimed as I took it from him
EAST MONTPELIER – I see by the news that the Iditarod Race is in full cry up in Alaska. There’s a ceremonial false start right near Anchorage: kind of a parade, really, with celebrities everywhere. Then next day, safely out of downtown, the real thing begins: a roughly thousand-mile slog[Read More…]
Bread and circuses
EAST MONTPELIER – I had the experience, some thirty years ago, of sharing a canoe in the Canadian Arctic with a delightful child psychiatrist. Naturally, we talked all day long of shoes and ships and sealing wax, I suppose, and I remember a few of the things I learned. One[Read More…]
This stuff never gets old
EAST MONTPELIER – One of the advantages of a three-day weekend is that we get an extra day just to talk. It doesn’t matter what else we may be doing, there’s just more time to chat and share points of view on what’s happening around us. Thanks to the wild[Read More…]
