The Spring Races
The young know no limits. … More The Spring Races
The young know no limits. … More The Spring Races
In the Second World War, young Russian women, often just girls, would volunteer to fight at the front against the Germans. If assigned to a tank medical corps, their position was to ride on the back of a tank into battle while the male soldiers rode inside driving the tank and firing the weapons. Russian … More Baby Boomers: Born at the Right Time and Place.
Suddenly the skies opened up this week and we had a taste of high summer. No better time to get out on the bike and find out how rusty the muscles became over winter. It is pretty bad but not irreparable. On the waterfront I encountered the art work that represented my body, the rusty … More The Rusting Seagull
What a dork! Off to the Junior Prom in the mid-1970’s, he has his whole life ahead of him, believing everyone more or less lives by the same template; get an education, find a girl, marry, then settle down raise children. Repeat in the next generation. With this presumption on board I got to college, … More American Pie- Fair Comment
It is 50 years ago. My sister and I sit on the Coca-Cola ice water chest in front of the Atlantic Richfield service station watching the cars emerge from the heat shimmers off the highway, then disappear into them again. It is about 100 degrees and really dry. Occasionally we have to get off … More Summers in Idaho
For once I thought I might escape if only for a moment my hopelessly bourgeois life, so I brought my guitar to the annual Newton Kight summer picnic this year to host a sing along. Wow what a terrible venue. Silver Lake picnic shelter next to a four lane. We shared our cheeseburgers in paradise … More I Would Really Rather Be Jimmy Buffett
Five years ago while visiting family there, we happened to take exit 82 off the Garden State Parkway and find ourselves in Seaside Heights, a beach resort on New Jersey’s central coast. As it turned out, this was just weeks before Hurricane Sandy devastated the island. This summer I packed my digital recorder and we … More Hurricane Sandy and the Resilience of New Jersey
The Whole Foods checker and her bagging clerk talk to each other as if I am not standing there. One says to the other “When we get done with ‘this one’ ” referring to me. She then goes on to describe what task they have before them next. It was an existentialist experience. I am … More When We Get Done With This One
It just occurred to me the initials of leading Republican candidate are the same for a nervous system disorder brought on by too much drinking over an extended period, then sudden withdrawal; Delirium Tremens. Symptoms of the disorder include hallucinations, which is evident from the success of the candidate. A significant number of American’s think they … More America: You have the DT’s
A man is interviewed in his living room in Aleppo, Syria about the war. On the wall behind him hangs a velveteen painting of dogs playing poker. He wears a North Face jacket. The BBC interviewer seems oblivious to the odd aspects of this scene, and really wants to know more about how the man has survived … More The Absurd Optics of Globalization