Swamp to Swamp This week I am hopping from swamp to swamp here in Florida, visiting friends while Kim spends more quality time with her cabaret pals at Disney, in the middle of the Orlando swamps. I have at least eight sets of friends littered up and down the East Coast of Florida from Delray Beach up to Daytona Beach. I lunched in Palm Beach Gardens with Terry and Paula and dined with Kevin and…
Ohmmmmmmicron I’m a traveling man again this week. As I’ve perhaps mentioned more times than I care to count, I get more and more inclined to stay put the older I get, but I am nonetheless traveling this week and the one thing I know about myself is that I can shift gears when needed and revert to traveler mode when I need to. There must be a part of my cortex that knows how…
Ramski I was born RAP, but became a RAM. That’s right, I was born Richard Albert Prosdocimi, the name my father and his father carried with them when they emigrated right before the end of WWII to Venezuela from Italy. I have never confirmed the exact position in the Mussolini government held by my paternal grandfather, but have been told that it was something pretty high-ranking and something like the Minister of Ethiopian Affairs. I…
Kumon When we lived in New York City I used to ride down Seventh Avenue, which turned into Varick Street at Clarkson Street, where my youngest son Thomas’ high school was located. Somewhere along that length of Seventh or maybe Varick, I would see a curious sign on a storefront. It was called Kumon with the “o” in the name formed by a round little face with two wide-set eyes and a straight little line…
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…