The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

“Should we just go ahead and sign up for Apple TV?” I asked my wife, Cora. “It’s only ten bucks a month.” “Sure why not.” “Alright.” I answered. “The Giants are on Apple tonight, though I think it sucks that they’re starting to stream sports. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to watch Masters of the Air.” …

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“Save Democracy!!” It’s the battle cry dujour. Google, “save democracy,” and you’ll get an almost endless list of articles about throwing America’s drowning democracy a lifeline. There’s even a 10 week course on how to reboot America’s democracy. As if 10 weeks would be enough. The pundits and the hacks are all over “Saving the …

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“Leaving home was one of the easiest big decisions I’ve ever made. But once I left home, continuing the journey until it reached some kind of sensible conclusion or fully played itself out, was another matter – one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted.” ~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways. ‘Just drive,’ I tell …

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The aircraft is on approach, circling the regal city known as “La Dominante.” Forehead leaning against the window I look down and easily pick out the features. There’s the Grand Canal, busy with water traffic; vaporettos, working boats, and pleasure craft. I can even see the gondolas, little water bugs bobbing on canals big and …

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Call this a memory jogger. Or call it a cautionary tale. Call it both. This is a look back to that period between June 15th, 2015 and, well, now. It’s also a peek into what America’s future might look like. The way we were We didn’t know it at the time, but that June day …

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Back when I was a tweener/teener, that is to say the olden times, when describing Mick Jagger as spry wasn’t meant as a compliment to a nimble octogenarian rocker, and Dick Nixon was seen as the ultimate in political corruption (Little did we suspect), my three favorite magazines were Playboy, Mad, and Sports Illustrated. Playboy, …

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“Too clever by half.” It’s a Britishism; one of those slang phrases from across the pond that has us Americans scratching our heads trying to solve an expression that sounds contradictory at best and at worst, like downright gibberish. “Too clever by half,” was coined in 1858 by George J. Whyte-Melville in his book,” The …

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“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.” ― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly Food. Glorious food. Pure food. Real food. Food that you can taste just by looking at it. Food that you never knew could smell so fresh and look so perfectly beautiful. This is the food …

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If the breeze is just right, the aroma hits you just as you’re stepping off Dlouhá Street into Staroměstské náměstí, Prague’s Old Town Square. It’s a savory, intoxicating blend of a wood fire and slowly roasting meat. The smell is reeling me in. And why not? This smell is built into the human’s sustenance DNA. …

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