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Coal For Christmas
[Watercolor sketch by Paul Egan. Date unknown.] [Note to my readers: If you think you’ve read this blog before, don’t think you’re getting senile. It’s perhaps the fourth or fifth time I’ve posted it. It’s my version of a pure Christmas Story. I’ve tweaked the story several times to try to make the narrative better, clearer and more truthful. As…
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For Me? It Was a Hard Days Night
[Source: Google search.] There were no classes scheduled for that Monday. It was parent/teacher conference day at Ridgefield High School in Connecticut. I was assigned to meet the parents of my students in an office close to the front entrance. I sat at the head of a large conference table made of a dark wood.…
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Like Living in a Holiday Greeting Card
[Photo is mine.] Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. –Lyrics by Sammy Cahn I’ve never lived inside a greeting card before. You’d have to be really really thin, like Wiley C. Cayote after being flattened by a road paver. Never fear. My readers know that and that the title of this post…
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Bob Takes A Bow
[Source: Google search.] “I’ve got nothing more to live up to.” –Dylan This is not going to be the usual Bob Dylan fan blog. I’ve something special to relate. More on that later. I’m sitting in what is usually the warmest room in our home, the dining room. It must be the two sets of…
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Trying To See Orting Through The Eyes Of Elias
[Elias and Erin nap. Erin has a cold.] Behind my back, twenty-three miles east south-east, sits Mount Rainier. The second day we were here, the sun set into the Pacific Ocean and bathed Rainier in the most spectacular alpen-glow I’ve seen in years. We had a few days of clear weather. Today, it is rainy…
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Autumn And Gravestones
[Sitting and thinking at Forest Cemetery, St. Regis Falls, NY.] Now that there is six inches of fresh snow on the ground and the trees are bare and the world outside our picture window is monochromatic, I can admit that I miss the late summer, the coolness of autumn days and the color of the…
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My Halloween Guest Blogger
[Source: Google search.] Pleased to meet you, I’m a man of wealth and taste. –Mick Jagger, Sympathy for the Devil. It’s my favorite time of year. It’s Halloween. And to help me celebrate, I have invited a “guest blogger” to take this space and make it her own. Erin Egan lives with her husband, son, and…
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My Son’s Beard
I saw him being born. Later on, I saw peach fuzz on his adolescent chin. A few years later, when he moved in with us, in New York City, I think he borrowed my razor. Yesterday, I stood next to him at The Beacon Bar. I sipped a beer, he had something I never…
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My Father’s Books
The 1950’s & 1960’s On Sunday nights, in the house at 420 Front Street in Owego, NY, there was usually an empty chair in our living room. My mother and three older brothers would gather around an oversized wooden console that housed a Black & White TV. The Ed Sullivan Show was about to come…
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Another Time Around
[Our front deck table.] It all happened so fast. One minute, the flies fill the skies, the frogs croak down by the lake, the fan is kept on all night (a rare thing here in the North Country) and I spend my outdoor time swatting mosquitoes. Tonight, we’re told of a frost warning. The fan…
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patrickjegan 