Framing’s the Issue Last year at this time I was deep into my trauma of my deck repair that became a deck renovation that ultimately turned into a deep and dark hole of a deck replacement. The bad news with all that is a distant and fully healed wound at this point, but the knowledge gained about construction has lingered. As they always say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That goes double with…
Tolkien Spoken Here I spent my middle school years in the back-woods of South Central Maine. I guess that helped make me, in part, a Mainiac. We were living in Poland Spring, the scene of oh so many stories. Poland Spring was an old-world resort for the carriage trade of Boston and New York going back as long as 1794 when Hiram Ricker “discovered” that the combination of the fresh spring water, devoid of most…
The Root of All Evil “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10, King James Bible). This scripture has been dissected and analyzed for years and there is a great deal to chew on with such a broad claim. It is said to be an epistle of the Apostle Paul and…
Early to Rise As I have thought many times, I am both blessed and cursed with an overactive mind. I have read up on sleep patterns and all the ancient proverbs about sleep and they all gravitate to the theme that it is healthier and more productive to set a pattern of sleep such that you go to bed earlier and rise earlier. Some say this is the wisdom of Ben Franklin, some say it…
Jumping Jimmy I am starting this story today because yesterday the news shot around the world that Jimmy Cayne, the controversial long-time CEO of Bear Stearns died at age 87, probably with a cigar in his mouth. I want to tell my story about Jimmy Cayne, but I probably need to take my time and not rush it to print since it brings up many mixed emotions, some of which are not particularly attractive. Therefore,…
Total Recall It’s late Christmas morning and most of the presents have been unwrapped and the bows and ribbons saved for another future gift wrapping while the wrapping paper gets crumpled up and thrown into a trash bag. Kim has perfected the Christmas morning program with everyone getting a big stocking stuffed with small joking wrapped gifts. The objective is to find things that are mildly appropriate and amusing and yet not so over-the-top that…
Andre the Giant In 1946 in the little town just 40 miles East of Paris, a man was born to a family of Eastern European immigrants (specifically Bulgaria and Poland). Andre Rene Roussimoff weighed thirteen pounds at birth and carried the nickname Dede. Right from the start he was taller and bigger than all the other children in his village and while a trained clinician might have diagnosed gigantism at an early age, the family…
Workin’ At The Carwash Blues In 1974, while I was working at the Cornell Plantations for the summer, doing 12-hour shifts (7am – 7pm) before running off to a little league practice for the team of seven-year-olds I was coaching, and before picking up my summer-fling girlfriend, Margaret, from her job at the nursing home at 11pm and getting to bed or not, whenever, I would listen to Jim Croce sing his latest hit. While…
Caution: Boric Acid I have written many times in passing about the country of Chile. For such a small country, far from the United States, farther from Europe, and with a turbulent course of history during the span of our lifetime, it holds a disproportionately important role in my consciousness. I have thought long and hard about why Chile enjoys such a place in my sense of history and I have a number of thoughts…
The End of Family Gardening American roots run deep in the family farm. The development of the nation from its original thirteen colonies after their war of independence through the ensuing nineteenth century of westward discovery, settlement and expansion, pretty much took the same path with one territory after another becoming a product of the family farm. The term “family farm” is most often applied to an intergenerational wealth transfer protocol that allows for the…