The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

Continued from An American Legacy Story Part I: Willie Rickwood (baseball) Field, Birmingham, Alabama. June 20, 2024.Baseball has been played at Rickwood since 1910, making it America’s oldest active baseball park. A baseball game will be played at Rickwood today. For over a century, thousands of baseball games have been played at Rickwood; Major League …

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Banner photo: I shot this photo before a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, on the day after Willie Mays passed away. June 18, 2024. My wife and I were sitting, lower box, along the third baseline in Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Stadium. The buzz started sometime …

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There I was, on November 8th of 2016, standing in line at the polling place, minding my own business when my conscience tapped me on the shoulder, “Dude, you aren’t going to vote for Hillary, are you?”“Why not?” I asked. “Better than Trump.”“No shit. Hemorrhoids are better than Trump. Dog shit is better than Trump.”“So …

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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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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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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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The twelfth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. I’m southbound out of Pendleton, Oregon on Highway 395, a two lane sluice through broad fields of ranchland on either side of this solitary highway. Acres of yellow cheatgrass undulate in a light breeze and a bright morning sun just topping …

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The eleventh in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. It’s seven in the morning and it’s toasty inside The Rainbow Cafe in Pendleton, Oregon. Outside it’s, as my daddy used to say, colder than a well digger’s ass. That is, the temp is somewhere south of 30 degrees. I’ve never …

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Anyone born before 1996 most certainly knows where they were and what they were doing 22 years ago, this day. My wife and I were getting dressed for work. I was at the bathroom sink when my wife called me over to the television. On weekday mornings we kept the little TV in the bedroom …

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