Grand Rapids, MI June 27, 2019 Given the hypothermic water conditions a couple days ago, we decided to wait till yesterday to venture back in the lake. Since the temperature had been in the high 40s and is now in the upper 50s, holding off certainly made sense. Then again, it was a bit like […]
Glenn, MIJuly 25, 2019 Last week’s heat has subsided. Morning coffee and evening wine once again yearn to be consumed under the comfort of sweaters or the cover of blankets. Like a liberating force expelling a foreign army, howling winds and torrential rain made an amphibious landing over the weekend, chased the occupying heat from […]
Glenn, MIJuly 22, 2019 Banners wave along the Champs-Élysées as the Grande Armée marches toward L’Arc du Triomphe. Confetti falls on Broadway as parades proceed down the Canyon of Heroes. Soldiers are joyous in Times Square, downing Champagne and kissing the first girls they can find. Fifty years ago last weekend, man took a small step…and mankind […]
Glenn, MIJuly 21, 2019 When sorrows come They come not as single spiesBut as battalions– Hamlet When it rains, it pours -Same idea, with less pomposity Slave-driven triremes carried the material goods and mental heritage of Greece and Rome through the shoals and storms of the Mediterranean and, over the tide of time, to us. Columbus […]
Atlanta, GAJuly 14, 2019 We’ve all heard the story of the lady who receives a beautiful red rose and places it on her cluttered kitchen table. The flower is lovely, but its charms are overwhelmed by the mess around it. She clears the debris, giving the rose room to shine…but exposing the dull veneer of […]
Glenn, MIJune 29, 2019 Tiberius escaped to Capri. Jefferson to Poplar Forest. Hearst to his Castle. Thoreau to his pond. For seventeen years, we have come here. Our uncle George bought this house, on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, twenty-five years ago. Several years later, he invited Rita and me to bring our 18-month-old first-born […]
Atlanta, GA June 19, 2019 Many of you…like craven empty-nesters who forgot to buy candy on Halloween night…locked the doors, turned off the lights, and cowered under the kitchen table. When my employer relieved me of my job like a beached whale pushed back into to the sea, you no doubt shuddered in dreary expectation […]
Atlanta, GA June 11, 2019 “I don’t like my job and…I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.” “You’re just not gonna go?” “Yeah…” “…So you’re gonna quit?” “Not really…I’m just gonna stop goin’.” “So…you gonna get another job?” “Nah…I don’t think I’d like another job either.” – Office Space, 1999 We live in a remarkable […]
Atlanta, GA June 3, 2019 Years ago, as Freshman at Georgia Tech, I walked into a friend’s dorm room and saw on the wall a poster of a beautiful blonde biting into a peach in front what was then an Atlanta skyline of about four notable buildings. In bold text across the top were the […]
Atlanta, GAMay 29, 2019 This week, as our days lengthen and my time increases, the pendulum swings from the mental to the manual. But the pressure is high…and the heat is on. May in Atlanta is usually beautiful. Skies clear. Temperatures moderate. Humidity is low. Flowers bloom. Birds chirp. Pollen subsides. And a comforting breeze […]