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Cause and Effect: My Front Porch Dilemma
Today, on my front porch, I was faced with a dilemma. I was a witness to an act of nature, an act that is repeated a billion times each minute here in the North Woods. If you factor in the endless variations on this particular situation that occur world-wide, then the number is incalculable. But…
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The Ball: A Fable
So you want to hear a story, is that right? Yes. Okay, then I’ll tell a story to you…even you, over there in the corner. Come closer. The boys did as they were told. A story? Well, if you don’t mind I’d rather call it a Fable. That is if you don’t really mind. Fables…
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Reflections on Father’s Day [My Split Personality]
My wife showed me the mirror. “Shall I toss it?” I looked at the brass Art Nouveau frame, just enough Erte to grab my eye. “No way,” I said. I was standing on the deck and I held the object d’art up and found my reflection. The glass was broken in several places. My face…
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At The Hound Tor
This is the place of legends. Arthur Conan Doyle saw these rocks and promptly went home to write The Hound of the Baskervilles. Our walk was five miles, beginning in the car park on the north side of Hound Tor. We were to end our day climbing up and over and between the rock outcrops,…
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Along a Footpath in Devonshire, England
This is the eastern edge of Dartmoor National Park in Devonshire, England. The mossy stone walls and pastures will soon give way to the high moors.
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The Child and the Sea
Children are attracted to the sea. Perhaps it’s the thundering waves, or the endless ways that sand can be used. The waves are constant, soothing and steady, like a lullaby. The castles that can be built in the sand can be as humble or regal as the wildest imagination. Perhaps, the attraction is in the…
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Passports 15: Good-bye England [I Want You]
We sat in an Irish Pub, O’Neills, in the west end of London. It is my last night in England. I can see Bushmills Irish Whiskey etched into the glass of the large window. The letters are backwards. Two singers–one on an acoustic and the other on an electric guitar. They are playing a Beatles tune…
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Passports 14: The Sad Life & Lonely Death of Kitty Gray
The Tors and heathland of Dartmoor is a landscape that breeds legends. Legends, myths, mysteries and ghosts. The guidebooks tell you not to go out onto the moors when the weather is foul. When the fog descends, as it often does, and when the misty rain falls on the gorse, and on the matted shag…
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Passports 13: Getting a Leg Up–An Introduction to the Footpath Stiles of England
Footpaths are as common in England as salt grains on a Big Mac. (I’m not sure that metaphor works here, but I’ve been wanting to use it for decades.) Unlike the States, the lines between private property and the pubic right-of-way are a bit foggy, like the desolate and lonely landscapes of Dartmoor and the…