Author: Vic Socotra

Christmas Card 1977

24 December 1977 Merry Christmas! We ran across this image this week. It brought back memories about the old Christmas Card Production ritual. Remember? The gathering of the clan, the photo-taking, address lists, writing the letter, printing at the photo-shop downtown, and finally the trip to the Post Office. Given the enormous changes in our world, […]

Arrias and His Muse: A Christmas in Verse

Sanctuary A Siberian beast stalks the high plains, From the mountains the frost giants descend, Scouring the land before them, In their storm-blast mighty trees will bend. Alone on the plain a dacha stands, Proof against the cruelest gale, The Master and the Mistress of this house, Sip their cognac, they will prevail. A cheery […]

London, 1988 In late December, my team of uniformed and civilian government workers, prime and support contractors weas wrapping up the install of a state-of-the-art multi-level secure intelligence system at the HQ of CINCUSNAVEUR, when the NSA, DIA and CIA security accreditors said we needed to fix some issues. We dutifully cancelled our travel arrangements […]

Money for Nothing

The title this morning came from a minor disagreement out on the balcony at Big Pink just before dawn. There is plenty of stuff to get excited about, and word from the Chairman’s staff was to “keep it upbeat and celebrate the season.” We are in favor of that, but that gentle management admonition turned […]

Running Out of Gates

Joy for the holidays! The to-do list is virtually complete. Except we are running out of ‘gates’ to use. We did the Water-one a long while ago, and everything else after that has been tried. Russia was popular for a while. This morning we are trying “Qatar” and “Morocco,” even if we were not certain […]

Home by Christmas

02 February 2009 (Middle and right: Mac and John, 2009). “If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven’s Scenes They will find the streets well-guarded by The United States Marines.” There is a big Canadian blast of cold air coming our way on this approach of the holidays. As our title this morning […]

Coastal Empire Days of Christmas

Author’s Note: Here are a few samples of Savannah’s days of Christmas: -Marlow Best decorated front entrance door on Habersham Street Christmas Market on River Street W’s fresh cut Christmas tree Copyright 2022 My Aisle Seat www.vicsocotra.com

Christmas With Tito

As you know, there has been another war in Eastern Europe going on for over ten months now. I was a remote participant in the one before that, and our pal Mac Showers had been there for one of the key moments in post-World War II history. I was writing a book on Mac’s remarkable […]

Weather Report: Bass Ackwards

There was controversy in the Writer’s Section before the first pot of Chock Full O Nuts coffee was gone. Should we duck the big stories and talk about something that happened more than eighty years ago? Well, if it means avoiding actual honest labor on a Friday, naturally we are inclined to do so. War […]

Tech and Tell

Was that Medium a ‘Message,’ or ‘Massage?” There is a lot going on this morning. We talked about running the Weather Report for this week but have decided to wait until tomorrow. That may enable us to see if we will continue to fund the activities of our Government. By law it will run out […]