Author Archive
For reasons unclear to me, I just remembered seeing an otherwise singularly forgettable Broadway show. You need to know I was a 20-year-old soldier with a Top Secret clearance awaiting a slow boat to France in 1952. The New Jersey barracks was full of pinochle players, not a bridge player in sight. Besides New York…
As you read, please note that this was written in 2014. For your consideration we are offering it AGAIN. Think About It. Again. You can be forgiven if you don’t remember the last time. Twenty-eight years ago fully 60% of you were under 16 years of age and probably paid little attention to chaos caused…
Harry and I had planned to meet at his home at the end of Miller Road and row their canoe northeast through the lily pads toward Davis Lake. I was ten years old, while Harry was only seven; but he was precocious, perhaps from military boarding school while his parents were making magic across the…
For me, 88 is significant, so I’m taking the liberty of saluting me today. Since I love music and have never played an instrument, my gift to me was a Yamaha digital with 88 keys. Since I was recently asked to write a brief bio for a public presentation I’m expected to make soon, I…
Think About It. July 28, 1975. Can you imagine? You wake up one sunny Santa Barbara morning with a reminder to head for the airport. On the runway is the sleekest, shiniest aircraft you’ve ever seen. They said it was built for Apollo Arlines by the first publicly traded British aircraft manufacturer, founded by Sir Frederick…
They all laughed at the thought that their octogenarian dad might go to the Alice Cooper concert. But as Ira Gershwin so wryly wrote it, “Who has the last laugh now?” Not only did dad and Mary stand for the full show with a full house of fans, but we shared row F with Mark…
Think About It. Truths. Evidently, some hotheads in the east were fed up with King George’s continued interference in the lives and businesses of the newly arrived inhabitants. Trouble had been brewing, tea had been tossed and a year had passed since the British Parliament decided to levy an intolerable tax. Oh yes. Men with muskets had…
Long before the difficult greenness of being Kermit, there was amiable philosophizing Pogo. While the beloved frog chose to stroll the streets of New York singing, the personable possum opted for permanent residence in the Okefenokee Swamp, deep in the state of Georgia. I’m not at all certain that the Weaver children knew some of…
Think Again. WWII. Now that was a war. We the people of the United States were prepared by years of well-placed publicity to help us hate the ”krauts” and the “japs”, Hitler and Hirohito. Italy’s head “wop” Mussolini was thrown in as a bonus. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s publicity department had reluctantly prepared the country…
Think About It. Neatness and Order. For as long as I can remember, I have had a penchant for it (or them). Mary laughed when I first said that, after which I acknowledged my desire for an orderly life (or desk for that matter) has not been matched by my personal practice. Wouldn’t we all like…