Searching for Andre When I arrived at college as a Freshman (attending Cornell University, my mother’s Alma Mater located in Ithaca, New York), I was seventeen and had arrived via a hitched ride from Cleveland, Ohio. I had been in Cleveland working for the summer as a sociology research assistant at Case Western Reserve University and my mother was on an extended business trip to Colombia from our regular home at the time in Rome,…
Trippin’ This week suddenly saw a flurry of travel activity in our lives. We decided several weeks ago that we would rebook our motorcycle group’s Silver Anniversary, which got postponed last year due to COVID. That is a May event, which the perfect time of year to see southern Utah. We also postponed a planned trip to Mendocino in the northern coast area with Frank and Loretta, which we have now rebooked for April. This…
Raining on My Parade I am forced to start meditating and chanting for lack of any other answers to my prayers. As I am within sight of the deck finish line I am suddenly encountering a rainy season that it killing my homestretch plan for completion. We are two rows into the tiling with the expectation that we can do several added rows each day. Remember, Handy Brad does nothing (ESPECIALLY tile) except in the…
History for History’s Sake We were just visited by my nephew Jason. Jason is my sister Barbara’s oldest child and he is now over forty years old though he always seems younger to me. Jason did not go to college where his younger sister attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and went on to get her veterinary degree at Kansas State. Jason has supported himself by being a specialized garage door guy who apprenticed with…
Lighting the Hillside When I first decided to light up the landscaping of my house, I got a specialized outdoor lighting company to come in and bid on the entire job as they envisioned it, understanding that I would likely phase the project rather than do it all at once. The two biggest reasons for that were the likely cost and the fact that I was just starting to deal with the renovation of my…
Moving the Spirit Do you remember Fridays? They used to be such happy days. They were the end of the week and the beginning of our weekly breaks. They signified that we had done the hard work of the week and were now deserving of some rest and relaxation. It was such a universal phenomenon that there is now an 870 store chain called Thank God It’s Friday, where people can gather to celebrate the…
Feet of Clay Back when I was in my thirties, I recall having a problem with my feet. Having always been big in the extreme, it did not surprise me that my feet might give me trouble. There are very few parts of the body that can directly connect on a cause and effect basis to something like size. When I was a freshman at prep school, specifically Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine, I was…
Shuffling the Deck I believe this story will complete my deck analogy repertoire. I have “hit the deck” and “decked the haul”, so now I am shuffling the deck. To begin, a status report on the work. As of today (Tuesday, March 2nd) I have a perfectly smooth, perfectly sloped deck of hardened mud or mortar that will allow water to flow away from the house and over the front edge. It looks and feels…
The Trusted Advisor I saw in the Washington Post today that Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. died at the age of 85. You may or may not remember the name Vernon Jordan, but I have the pleasure of having known him in very direct and somewhat intimate ways that I think deserve a reprise. I feel inclined to reflect on people at their demise if I have known them personally or they have had a generally…
Catatonic For some reason, I don’t like cats. When I am around them and when they want to be social, they seem fine, but I am slightly put off by all the things that others generally like about cats. Independence seems to be a big cat theme. They amuse themselves and seem to be less gregarious creatures than not and seem inclined to live more solitary lives, jumping from here to there and then casually…