Getting Robbed I had a message on my phone last night from a woman I recognized as an old college friend Rob’s ex-wife. I hadn’t spoken to her for years. I called her knowing something meaningful was up. I had spoken to Rob a few months ago and he did not sound at all well. I told a mutual friend that he sounded like he was 90 years old and feeble at that. At…
One Small Step for Man The other day at lunch several similarly aged Baby Boomers and I sat at lunch playing “where were you when.” The first trick is to figure out the events of our lives that rose to the occasion. JFK getting shot in 1963 is the baseline and everyone could remember. We all missed on Martin Luther King and The RFK assassinations in 1968. The next one was the moon landing in…
The Love of My Life As we wing our way back to New York from Ireland, I am seated across the aisle from Kim, my wife of twelve and a half years and the love of my life for fourteen years. As I look at her sleeping with her headphones on, she looks like any other person curled up in a row of ten business class sleeper seats. I am reminded of that powerful…
Home Again Home Again, Jiggety Jig Vacations are supposed to recreate and relax. I believe we have found the perfect formula for that. Yes, Ireland has been wonderful and greatly exceeded our expectations. We really enjoyed Normandy, and Rome is very special to me and would always be a pleasure. México, both Cabo and Akumal, were fun and restful. Todi in Umbria was perfect for exploring the hill towns of central Italy. Next, we’ve spoken…
Driving Ms. Susie The oldest members of our group in Ireland this week are Pete and Susie Jones of Wabash, Indiana. Both were teachers in Kim’s home town. Susie was Kim’s choir director at their Presbyterian church. That connection lasted over the years as Kim wandered to Los Angeles and then New York, pursuing her musical theater career. Kim had dwindling family connections in Wabash, but Pete and Susie were a strong and important anchor…
The Silence of the Rhododendron The Irish countryside is as lush as its name, the Emerald Isle, conveys. Everywhere you look where there is no stone, there is something vital and green growing. In fact, when I learned that the Irish soil was generally lacking in the nutritional qualities to support much agriculture, I was surprised. I would have guessed the opposite. The give-away is that when you look at the hillsides you see what…
Our Trip to the South Pole Killarney is a fine old town that has a grand cathedral in Saint Mary’s, the Killarney National Park and plenty of other attractions and shopping. That said, I’ve been in Killarney four times in ten days and have been in the cathedral (the stained glass and the stonework are indeed exceptional), have been to Ross Castle twice and Muckross House once and driven through the National Park twice on…
Merzy Doats and Tom Toms I have been admonished by faithful blog reader Lonnie to dispense with the blogging while on a family vacation and focus instead on my family. I take all blog comments to heart and always try to be a better man, but on this one I must disagree. Do you remember that scene in A Few Good Men when Tom Cruise has Colonel Jack Nicholson of Guantanamo Bay on the witness…
The Cats in the Irish Cradle My son Roger is thirty-seven years old and I am particularly pleased to have him along with me on this week in Western Ireland. Roger is, for all our differences, more like me than not. There are many ways to notice this, but the best way is to spend a week in a “strange” new land with specific culinary customs. Now some would say that Ireland is more like…
Comfort and Clansmen Here’s the thing I have never reconciled about vacations, I almost always forego comfort to be with my clansmen. Like any basic experiment, you need a control, and my control for this purpose is my home, whether a primary residence or a secondary home (I currently have both). We all work very hard to make our homes homey. We have all our stuff (per George Carlin) around us in the most convenient-sized…