Atlanta, GA December 20, 2022 A few years ago, over breakfast with a mentor who’d recently retired, I lamented being middle-aged. Having three children as old as I was, he responded by providing perspective…and putting me in my place. “How do you think I feel?”, he asked. “My kids are middle aged!” Like drops of […]
Auburn, AL September 25, 2022 “SWEET AUBURN! Loveliest village of the plain.” – Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village This is Homecoming and “Parents Weekend” at Auburn. We aren’t alums. But we do have a son who hopes to be one in about a year. So with his younger brother, Rita and I came to campus. […]
Auburn, AL September 15, 2022 Mark Twain said that while history doesn’t repeat, it often rhymes. Today the stanza and meter brought back memories. My younger son is a senior in high school. He’s taken his tests, compiled his grades, and is applying to college. Our elder son went thru the same process three years […]
Atlanta, GA May 2, 2022 Life is a continuous series of forks in the road. Some are obvious; most are opaque. But we take them all, whether we know it or not. This missive alone may take quite a few, so I hope patient readers will remain for the ride (the impatient ones are already […]
Atlanta, GA April 17, 2022 Last week was Masters’ week, which in north Georgia is usually delightful. Until yesterday, when rain rolled in, this year was no exception: clear, sunny afternoons book-ended by chilly mornings and cool nights. The birds are chirping, the azaleas flower, and Atlanta’s arboreal canopy is in seasonal blossom. Bees are […]
Atlanta, GA March 26, 2020 Since at least the Enlightenment, and perhaps back to Bacon, the wolf of politics has disguised itself as a sheep of science. It fleeces its putative shepherds by cloaking its commands in the wool of “Reason”. After the French Revolution, the exaltation of the “expert” replaced the preeminence of the […]
Boise, ID February 19, 2022 Almost 45 years ago, my uncle took my mother, brother, and me to the first college basketball game I’d ever seen. I’m sitting now at the most recent one I’ve attended. And the same team played in both. “You mean”, my son asked, “that…of all teams…you’ve seen two Utah State games…one […]
Atlanta, GA February 16, 2022 Like a magnate who’s never happy if another mogul has more, LeBron James always looks as if he doesn’t get the respect he thinks he deserves. Perhaps it’s petulance. Maybe it’s pride. Or potentially it’s true. But I’ve always thought, regardless his accomplishments, that LeBron desperately wants his own “flu […]
For my step-father’s 90th birthday, I’m re-posting an essay I write on this day a couple years ago. It’s a re-run, but for a true original. Atlanta, GA November 16, 2019 “Little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.” – Melvyn Douglas in Hud, 1963 “Even da big boys don’t […]
Atlanta, GA November 6, 2021 Almost five years ago, we made plans for a parade. Unfortunately, we did so too soon, and confessed it out loud. My sons and I couldn’t believe what was happening, but we were elated. We’d never seen our team play this well. Of course, by then were hardly watching the […]