Category: History
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A Brief History of Kimonos
To be fully alive is to have an aesthetic perception of life because a major part of the world’s goodness lies in its often unspeakable beauty. ~~Yukitaka Yamamoto [An old triptych of three women wearing kimonos. Source: Google Search.] Recently, my wife and I spent an afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET). She…
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Local Boy Does Good
“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.” –Anon. [Source: Pintrest] It was mid-October. The forecast called for clouds and drizzle. The chilly air and the leaves along the sidewalks brought back memories of Halloweens past. I never saw so many pumpkins. I usually had…
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The Lost Mausoleum
“Reader beware as you pass by. As you are now so once was I. As I am now so you will be. Therefore, prepare to follow me.” –Tombstone Inscription [Source: Pintrest] This is a true story. It does not involve ghosts but it has potential. It takes place in Owego, NY, my hometown. Yes, it…
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Dorset of My Dreams
“Oh, to be in England…” –Robert Browning It all started on a late winter morning of 1984. I was walking to my office at King & Low-Heywood Thomas School (KLHT) in Stamford, Connecticut. Walking with me was a teacher/administrator. She was going through her teacher-mail regarding microscope sales and Petri dish discounts. She held on…
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A Young Man’s Backpack
“To travel, to experience and learn: that is to live.” –Tenzing Norgay Stuff has to go. Lots of stuff has to go. When you relocate from a 3-bedroom lakeside house to a 1-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive in New York, you soon realize how easy it was to gather stuff. And now, much of the…
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Dan & Daughter At Rest
My father is hidden behind everything I am. –Adrienne Egan “Danny Boy” (From a high school essay) I have long dreaded what was about to take place. As I approached the shore of Long Pond, the memories began to weigh heavy on my heart. How often had I stood in the sand since the early…
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Paying It Forward: More Late Night Thoughts on Greg
“And when I come to the dim trail-end, I who have been Life’s rover, This is all I would ask, my friend, Over and over and over: // Stars that gleam on a moss-grey stone Graven by those who love me– There would I lie alone, alone, With a single pine above me; Pine that…
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A Spadeful of Earth
Grief is the price we pay for love. –Queen Elizabeth II In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent…
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Of Time, Thomas Wolfe & Me
“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted; subtract us into the nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas,”… You, my readers, have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that quote in a blog or…
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