Out of our league

Lap (verb, transitive): to overtake a competitor in a race to become one or more laps ahead OK, America, time to wake up. Here’s the deal: We’re getting lapped by the rest of the world. Badly. There was a time when we were the leaders, not the laggards. That time is over. It’s not a [...]

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Radio silence

I’m heading to Korea on Tuesday. After I get there, it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to get settled, so I likely won’t be posting anything here for awhile. However, I will be back. Or Beethoven. Or one of those guys.  Before I go, a few parting thoughts: To Google: Way to [...]

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Anyone speak Menino?

This is about the future, and a real future, not a future of confusion, but a confusion of movin’ Boston forward, continuin’ to move Boston forward. — Boston Mayor Thomas Menino People of Boston, beware! There’s a mangler on the loose. Yes, I said mangler, not strangler. So, who are his victims? Words. Sentences. Paragraphs. [...]

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Ready to go

These vagabond shoes are longing to stray… – Frank Sinatra, Theme from New York, New York In a few weeks, I’ll be on the move again. I don’t yet know the exact location or departure date, but it won’t be long before I do. As a child, I lived in the same house from the [...]

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Snow choice but to shovel

Again with the shoveling. Oy! Today wasn’t as bad as yesterday, though. This time, it was just pushing an inch or so of the powdery stuff off to the side of the road. Yesterday, it took two hours to clear about five inches of wet sludge from around several cars and the front of the [...]

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An unpretty picture

I’ve got a picture in my mind. It’s not a very pretty picture. It’s a picture of a pigsty disguised as a home. Beer bottles, remnants of food and trash were strewn everywhere. Cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke and the pungent odor of something being fried hung in the air. Dirt, dust and grime coated every [...]

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The queen holds court

What’s the secret to living a long life? Walk everywhere, and take one aspirin a day — but only if you have a headache. So says my sole surviving great aunt, who’s 91 — going on 60. Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen Aunt Doris, as she’s known to everyone, in about 30 years. Indeed, I [...]

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Photo overload

They say the first step toward curing an addiction is admitting you have a problem. Well, I’ve got a little problem. I keep way too many digital photos. At best, I’m a novice photographer; in fact, “photographer” is too strong a word. I just take pictures — of people, buildings, bridges, nature and other things [...]

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Captain Jack

For reasons unbeknownst to me, a cadence call that we used to sing in the Marines during long runs drifted into my head today. I’m putting it here so I’ll be able to remember it. Hey, hey, hey, hey Whiskey Jack, Meet me down by the railroad tracks, With a bottle in my hand, I’m [...]

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The secret keeper

People tell me things. All sorts of things. Why? I’m really not sure. I think I have a trusting face. How do I know this? Daughters tell me things they’ve never told their mothers. Mothers tell me things they’ve never told their daughters. Sleepwalkers, and sleeptalkers, tell me things they don’t remember telling me. Sons [...]

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