Category: Blogging
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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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What Happened at 9:54 PM on September 22?
[The earth and sun at the equinox. Source: Google search.] Are you regular? I mean do you feel in balance? Was everything right as it should be on Saturday last, September 22? Many of you, myself included, will say that nothing is in balance these days. Nothing is as it should be. But let’s leave…
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Adorable Aquatic Mammals Of Rainbow Lake
[Castor canadensis. Source: Wikipedia] beaver n. A large aquatic rodent having thick brown fur, webbed hind feet, a broad flat tail and sharp incisors used for felling trees and building dams. –The American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed.) When late summer arrives here in the North Country and the leaves begin to turn red, gold and…
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Books I’ll Never Finish While I Can’t Sleep
[Source: Google search.] It’s 5:30 am. I just put aside a book that I probably will never finish. And I can’t sleep. I toss. I turn. I stare at the ceiling…at the wall and the glowing numerals of my digital clock. Hypnos has not come to my bedside tonight. Morpheus will not visit me and…
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The Night Lauren Bacall Heard Me Cough
[Photo source: IMDb] I lived for almost thirty years on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It’s an artsy neighborhood. And it’s not uncommon to cross paths with famous people, most often actors. My wife was in the Blockbuster Video store, in line behind Michael J. Fox. “I think your next,” he said to Mariam.…
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The Birch Tree Clock: An Update
After I posted the blog about a clock that my father made from a birch tree in our backyard in Owego, NY., I got some responses. Several people said that it would be a tribute to my father to restore the clock. Refurbish it. Make it come alive again. So, I did it. A friend,…
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An August Omen
Omen n. Something believed to be a sign of good or evil. –The American Heritage Dictionary Can you see it? Between the two large trees…behind the birch. I can see it. I first noticed it a few days ago but held-off saying anything about it. It’s not a cardinal or an oriole. It’s a leaf.…