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Confessions of a Reluctant Portal
People either hate me or love me. I wish they would decide and stop being so fickle. People are so fickle. I can’t help being what I am. Well, maybe that isn’t totally true. Perhaps I am paying for some long-forgotten sin or just ‘doing time’ while I wait for the cycle. But, don’t think…
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I Never Met a Map I Didn’t Like
Maps, like wild and green-eyed Irish redheads, are irresistible. They have a magnetic ability to draw me closer to them…to look, to touch and to stand in awe at what they can reveal to you. There are a zillion kinds of maps. This space and my time does not allow me to tally them for…
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These Haunted Mountains That I Love
Many of my blog posts tend toward the melancholy. The themes have often been about loss, grief, aloneness and death. That’s the way my mind works. I stare at the rain. I walk through the fog. I wander old and forgotten cemeteries, reading the names, dates and wondering about lives lived a century ago. It’s…
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Long Live the King
So, now it’s more or less certain that the bones of Richard III were found buried under a car park in Leicester, England. I happened to be in London when the news broke that researchers were looking closely at the site. At first it sounded like a bit from a “Monty Python” sketch…but then I…
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An American in Dorset (an excerpt)
Preface As I understand it, I am not allowed to donate blood. I have the British Government to partly thank for this dilemma. It so happens that I resided in Great Britain during the years when Mad Cow Disease was in its very early stages. I say, “partly thank” because even though MCD began to…
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The Life and Death of A Famous Everyman
It’s all over now. The last of the news vans pulled out this morning. Left behind are only a few stringers, standing in the front lawn or the cemetery, microphone in hand, filing useless bits that will be used to fill in the time between the weather update and results of the county Pumpkin Queen…
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The Mountain Nymph
I am walking down a trail in the ancient Adirondack Forest. I pull my wide-brimmed hat to better cover my eyes against the sudden spring rain. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and swat at the blackflies. I shuffle the rotting crimson and yellow leaves to one side. I monitor my steps carefully because…
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At the End of the Train
Those who lived within earshot of the railroad would usually be put to sleep by the clacking of the iron wheels passing over the rail joints. It was an age-old rhythm, a song often without words. It drew the listeners away from their world. Where was the train bound? Where did it come from? Hank,…
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The Legend of the Davy Crockett Pajamas
A little boy sat crying on a limb of an old apple tree. It was a crisp autumn day in New York City. Nearly all the leaves had abandoned their home trees and lay scattered in corners or along fences where the wind pushed them into piles mixed with old newspapers…
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A Story of Christmas and Coal
My father grew up poor. Not the kind of poor where he would walk through ten inches of snow barefoot or go from house to house asking for bread. His parents provided the best they could, but, by his own admission, he grew up poor. My grandfather and my grandmother should be telling this story.…
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