Category: Holding onto the Past
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Passports 3: Passing Through the Fields of Death
We left Paris on a crisp bright May morning. This was the only day-long excursion we booked in advance. We were going to visit Mont St. Michele in Brittany. The trip would take us four hours one way, in a northwest direction to this 850 year old Abbey mountain. Our route took us through the…
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The Brick Pond
I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. The name is Owego, which is derived from a Native American term that means “where the valley widens” or something close to that. The village has everything that a typical small American town should have. There is a beautiful cemetery on the hill…
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Good-bye Blip
I will miss the blip. The blip and I go back many, many years. I saw the blip when I was very young but I didn’t know what it was back then. Over the years, the blip took on a special significance when I would look for it in dark movie houses, from the next-to-last…
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The Thing
A few months ago, I stopped at a small country deli for a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich. The store was in Keene Valley, New York. There are fine views of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks from the porch of the deli. I had some brown mustard and low-fat mayo on rye bread. The…
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Sunday Rock
It was raining as I drove along the western edge of the Adirondack Park recently. It was around the time when my thoughts turned to how much weight the Yankee pitcher, C. C. Sabathia, had lost during the off-season. Or, perhaps I was reflecting on Colbert replacing Letterman on the Late Show. More than likely, however,…
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A Missing Image But Still A Memory
The photographic frame, measuring 3″x5″ sat on the flat surface of the headstone. It’s a small quiet Catholic cemetery on the edges of the village of Saranac Lake, New York. The winter snow was gone but no grass or Spring flowers had the courage, or time, to begin their life again. Cemeteries are full…
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Lord Knows, I Tried
I believe that giving the gift of music to one’s own child is very important. This tendency to pass onto a child is something I got from my mother. When I was about ten years old, she signed me up for private piano lessons from a Miss Shepard, who lived next to the Presbyterian…
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A Brief History of Chains and Chainmaking
I am holding a very special letter in my hand right now. But, first… Whether we realize it or not, chains play a very important part in our lives. Indeed, chains have, throughout history, helped to hold the very fabric of our changing civilization together. For example, I was astounded to learn that the metal…
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Pushing Chalk: Recollections on a Classroom Life
Hey, teacher leave them kids alone. -Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall” 1979 “What is a rock?” I actually asked this question of my Earth & Space Science class of ninth graders. It was probably my third year of teaching. I was in a public school near Wilkes-Barre, PA. There were thirty kids in…
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This Old House
There is so much to be done when your last surviving parent dies. My father passed away nearly ten years to the day and I can remember so much of the aftermath that my brother, wife and I had to deal with. The lawyers, the probate, the will, endless medical records, phone calls, funeral arrangement…
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