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…]
A Yankee Notebook
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…]
Alaska can’t hold a candle . . .
EAST MONTPELIER – December 13, 1989 – Dear Sir – You are cordially invited to participate in the NINETEENTH ANNUAL INTERSTATE GERIATRIC SKI TOUR and GRAND SUB-ARCTIC BUSHWHACK to be held at the Hell Gate cabins in the Dartmouth College Grant from Friday, February 16, to Sunday, February 18, 1990.[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…]
In case we survive it
EAST MONTPELIER – I’m writing this before this year’s State of the Union speech. As an old hand at backstage preparations, I can well imagine the excitement currently infusing whatever passes for a green room wherever the president is getting ready for his coming performance. And I can imagine the[Read More…]
Would-be Thomas Paines
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – The so-called Founding Fathers of the United States of America were far from perfect. Compromised by various interests as they were, however, they were more aware of the various imperfections of the human character than might have been a band of starry-eyed idealists. Thus[Read More…]
Reminders of some of the happiest days
EAST MONTPELIER – I’m writing this during the afternoon of February 2. The sun is flooding the yard, raising the temperature to a dizzying 23 degrees, the snow lies deep in the woods, and there’s never been a bluer sky. Twenty-five years ago I wouldn’t be here; I’d be outside[Read More…]
Ranks up there with the stupidest
EAST MONTPELIER – The week just passed in Minneapolis, Minn., has been one of the most watched in perhaps all of American history. Aware that massive protests against the invasion of ICE were likely to occur, every news organization that could afford plane tickets for a film crew sent whatever[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…]
Somewhere there’s an audacious reporter
EAST MONTPELIER – Political historian Heather Cox Richardson, author of the daily newsletter “Letters from an American,” opined the other day that the news of the past week has seemed to be breaking faster than ever. From the invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president and first lady, to[Read More…]
Miles were already adding up
EAST MONTPELIER – Normally, when I thread the stop-and-go traffic of Lynn, break out at last into seven breakneck miles of I-95, and then merge into the rocket-propelled caravan of I-93, headed for New Hampshire and Vermont, it’s with a feeling of regret. I’m leaving a lovely weekend behind, and[Read More…]
