Well, now, that was a weekend! Late on Monday afternoon, I’m still trying to collate all the details and events of the last three days and turn from them to face the coming week with some new ideas and insights. So far, very little. My friend Bea had scored a pair of[Read More…]
Willem Lange
But suddenly, with overnight company in the offing
EAST MONTPELIER – It’s been a pretty peaceful and pleasant autumn here. The drought has been bedeviling farmers and orchardists, but it’s been perfect weather for my little convertible. The legislature and governor, though occasionally having differences of opinion, have at least not been calling each other names. The news[Read More…]
Probably think I’m losing it upstairs
EAST MONTPELIER – The back lot outside my office window is waist-high in a sea of goldenrod with little sprigs of purple asters peeping out here and there, a last feast for the bumbling bumblebees. Little flocklets of tiny birds, warblers, I’m guessing; they flit too fast for me, flow[Read More…]
There’s no crying need for anything additional from me
EAST MONTPELIER – Saturday morning, in bright sunshine and warming temperatures, a young man sat on the concrete railing of the Rialto bridge in downtown Montpelier. He bore two signs, one in each hand. I confess I can’t remember one of them, I think it had something to do with[Read More…]
Not old enough to remember
EAST MONTPELIER – For millions of Americans these days, the mantra du jour is, and has been for a while, “MAGA, Make America Great Again.” Putting aside for at least the moment many of the problems of the “good old days” that this slogan refers to, like racial segregation, disempowerment[Read More…]
The weak link was the ferry across the lake
EAST MONTPELIER – Labor Day weekend was scheduled to be a high-mileage event. Rather than my usual three hour-plus run from mid-Vermont to my friend Bea’s place on the ocean Friday afternoon, and then back on Monday noonish before my evening deadline, I committed to a high school class reunion[Read More…]
Ah, yes, the job
EAST MONTPELIER – In early June of 1962, after nine chaotic, fraught, and highly educational years in Ohio in pursuit of an undergraduate degree, I finally got one. I had the degree, a great part-time job (which I had to give up), no debts, no money, a one-year old VW[Read More…]
Re-enacting the first lap of the Gran Prix
EAST MONTPELIER – It’s hard for me to believe that I ever drove the width of New York State in vehicles of obviously uncertain (but certainly brief) futures without thinking twice about it. Thanksgiving holiday? No problem, even on an ancient Indian motorcycle with no windshield. Date in Buffalo? Here[Read More…]
Today, No One Remembers
EAST MONTPELIER – It’s often difficult, given the evidence all around us, not to be pessimistic about the future of the human race. We seem to progress at a rate significantly slower than we regress or remain fixed in place, which is pretty much the same thing. The prime example,[Read More…]
She Lived Through the Chaos
EAST MONTPELIER – In August of 1945, my family was living in a modest bungalow near the southwestern outskirts of Syracuse, N.Y. I was ten. My father was a missionary priest and traveled most of New York State north of Oneonta and Corning to visit his scattered parishes. With the[Read More…]
Universal Explosion of Growing Green
EAST MONTPELIER – The roof ridge of my house runs almost exactly east and west. I canted it about three degrees off, to 267 degrees west, so as to orient long face of the house due south with a slight nod to the morning sun for earlier solar heat, and[Read More…]
This One Hasn’t Been Scripted
EAST MONTPELIER − It’s been 92 years since the radio show, “Ma Perkins,” first aired in the United States. There probably aren’t many of us who remember it, which may be a blessing. Its modest daily domestic drama was sponsored by Procter & Gamble’s Oxydol laundry detergent, inspiring the term,[Read More…]
