"Write it down," my friend said. We were sitting on my front porch, late one Saturday afternoon. I want to describe it as a gray and drizzling scene, with a thin ribbon of cool air riding a warm breeze, the signal of oncoming weather. In truth, I can't remember this particular detail. The day may … Continue reading Write it down.
In the end, this is a kind of Mother's Day story. But it starts this way: When he was 16-going-on-17 my friend David, the atheist, ornithologist, environmentalist, and retired Fedex pilot, hitch-hiked from his Hudson River home to the Gaspé, where he spent the first of many summers watching birds. It was 1956, year of … Continue reading 16
Memphis, once known as the hardwood capital of the world, was built on a bluff, the Chickasaw Bluff, along the eastern side of the Mississippi River. The soil on the bluff, according to my limited understanding of it, is an interesting mix of loess (windblown silt), glacial gravel and alluvial deposits, good for filtering water … Continue reading Ever green, and orange and black.
The "sea of red" at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska holds just enough magic that one single visit, on a bright, clear game day, could sway even the most resistant football hold-out, namely me. The stadium, seats brimming with scarlet sweaters, is exponentially more impressive in person than on television. It is a spectacle that … Continue reading Men fish.
The letter, were I to write it, might open this way: What a year this has been, right from the start... In January we had the craziest weather. One weekend it snowed; the next it was sunny and 70 degrees. Almost every night ended with an outrageously vibrant, pink sunset. Inside the confines of our … Continue reading On birds, and letters, and opera.
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This may seem disjointed; that's simply the way things are. My friend Harriet, the Harriet who is very much alive, is a quilter. She sews the most beautiful quilts (and other things, too) and has the best sewing adventures to tell, stories I would share except that they are hers and not mine. I mention … Continue reading The living and the dead.
The third thing she told me was that life begins at 50. She said this just to me, out of earshot from my traveling companion, as she was tucking me back into the driver's seat, right before she said, "I love you," which is what she always said at the end. We had been together … Continue reading Life begins at 50.
