A chapter in an occasional series of posts documenting an autumn 2021 road trip through the Midwest. This post is a continuation of the post, A Coffee Shop Morning: Chewing on Life September 23rd, 2021, driving southbound in Eastern Iowa. Off to my left is the Mississippi River and somewhere deep in the river bottom …
“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” ~ Judy Blume I just recently finished reading Art Spiegelman’s, Maus, …
A chapter in an occasional series of posts documenting an autumn 2021 road trip through the Midwest. “Plans should be ephemeral, so be prepared to move away from them.” ~ Anthony Bourdain. Nine o’clock on a weekday morning is never a good time to get on the road in a major metropolitan area. But, instead …
The COVID Chronicles is a series of posts relating my experiences and observations during the pandemic. I hope that this will be the final post in the series. March 12, 2022. My wife Cora and I are having lunch at Caffe Sport in San Francisco’s North Beach, the City’s Little Italy. Caffe Sport is a …
Blood and destruction shall be so in use And dreadful objects so familiar That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war; All pity choked with custom of fell deeds: And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these …
The server came to our table, and in the perky manner that must nowadays be a server’s job requirement (“My qualifications are; extensive knowledge of fine dining, friendly, attentive, hard worker and I have a saccharine, perky voice that’s guaranteed to either warm your heart or kill your appetite.”), introduced herself and chirped, “I’ll be …
January, my least favorite month, is done. January; a cold, dark, barren toothache of a month. What does January have to offer? Oh sure it marks the start of a new year, and it…it… Well I’m not sure what else it brings to the feast. Just a dismal placeholder. Something has to take up that …
The side fence blew down last month, December 15th to be exact. That’s when an atmospheric river washed over California. An atmospheric river. That’s the term that the weather boys and girls have been using when we get a lot of rain and wind off the Pacific. It’s only been a couple of years that …
A chapter in an occasional series of posts documenting an autumn 2021 road trip through the Midwest. Continued from Contemplating The Mystery Box. Out there, between Denver and Pittsburgh, lay a broad land I’d barely seen. A once vast grassland that had become countless square plots of cornfields and soybean fields, splashed with small towns …
“The seller of lightning-rods arrived just ahead of the storm. He came along the street of Green Town, Illinois, in the late cloudy October day, sneaking glances over his shoulder. Somewhere not so far back, vast lightnings stomped the earth. Somewhere, a storm like a great beast with terrible teeth could not be denied.” When …
The Life in My Years 