Blacktop It has been a week of encounters with history, incongruous ones, to be sure, from both sides of the Atlantic. The Pope was interred yesterday, in the grotto below the altar of Saint Peter’s. It is all they can talk about in the media still, and there are all-new pictures on the web this […]

Quantum Mechanics It is a bit murky this morning, and the sound of rain pounding the patio pours in the window. I am home, which is good, since I can find my way around in the dark, but the place is so cluttered with junk that I still can stub my toe or trip over […]

Bag Drag The bill was slipped under my door when I padded past in the darkness. Marriott efficiency, a good thing. There were newspapers outside the door, the Virginian-Pilot and USA Today. They are hyping the Masters Golf Tournament and the cut-off off the line to view the Ope’s body and the death of Prince […]

Final Four Basketball is over, finally, the Women’s Championship decided decisively by the Lady Bears of Baylor over the Spartans of Michigan State. I have a family connection to the latter, and that is why I watched with a fatalistic attitude as MSU fell ten points behind, then more. A lot more. The woman’s game […]

Historyland Highway I wrote the story in my mind in the big bed, after the alarm went off. I thought I would recline for a moment and compose my thoughts. It was an elegant story and I think you would have liked it. I completed it, and then thought perhaps I should open my eyes. […]

Tipping-Point The clock claims it is nearly eight, though my body knows better. I have reset the clocks and placed my biological system four hundred miles to the East. This tipping-point in the season, this momentary disorientation, is going to pay off in energy savings, and more efficient use of the daylight. Or so they tell […]

Going Ashore Wind and rain, gray skies and muted colors. The sound of the drops pummeling the concrete outside my window at Big Pink echoes, and a chill breeze blows through the place. The window is open for the first time this year. It may not stay open long, but the window is open. The […]

April Fools I am about ready for Spring. It seems like it is here, though we are going to have a pelting rain later, and more tomorrow. The season seems reluctant to change, and keeps fooling me. I saw a lone blossoming tree of some sort- the pink one that is not a Cherry and […]

There is a saying that I associate with the war back home in The Big One. The Home Front. I see it in stoic Englishwomen, flickering in grainy black and white, watching their men go off and then going down to the plant to work on some assembly line. ”They also serve,” went the line, […]

Expressive Conduct I’m fried. It cannot be Wednesday; it seems like it has to be Thursday, at least. The day-trip to New Jersey yesterday took it out of me, that and the all-day session with the delegation from the ministry of defense of a sometime allied nation, and the fact that I wasn’t in the […]