Category: Melancholy Thoughts
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below the equator IX: looking for carlos gardel and getting lost in the other cemetery.
[The Entrance Gate. Video is mine] Only in Buenos Aires can the wealthy and powerful elite keep their status after death. Argentines are a strange bunch who tend to celebrate their most honored national figures not on the date of their birth, but on the date of their death (after all, they’re nobody when they’re…
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Below The Equator IV: A Day at the Recoleta Cemetery/ Among the Serene, the violated…and Evita
[Abandoned poster display outside the wall of the Cemetery of Recoleta, Buenos Aires. The advertising is gone, but behind the wall, the city’s dead remain. Photo is mine] My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten. I cast my dreams aside to fulfill those of others. ~~Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (Evita) Readers, you…
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Coal For Christmas
[Another year. Another Christmas. I republish this every holiday season with a tweak here and there. This story is true and I am passing it down to new readers and my two children and my grandson. Every story from our own lives or the lives of those we once loved…every story is worth telling. There…
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Ooh, Paddy: A Boy Sits In The Grass Near His Grandfather
[My grandfather, George Hotchko. Photo is from the early 1970’s. Credit: Daniel Egan.] Oh, I dunno, Paddy. Sometimes those stories keep me up at night. They make me uncomfortable. ~~Spoken to me by my grandfather, George Hotchko. When I was a little boy. 1950’s. Part 1-Meeting my grandfather… Yes, the title. Of course I’m the…
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A Dark And Sad Anniversary
[Steve’s grave. Monroe, Louisiana. Photo is mine.] The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. ~~ L. P. Hartley On Friday, November 22, I will step away from whatever social engagement I may be involved in…and I will look up to a cloud or maybe a single star. And I will remember.…
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On A Warm Halloween, Here’s Something For You
[The author at Highgate Cemetery, September, 2024. London. Photo is mine.] When I was a child, I was afraid of ghosts. When I grew up, I realized people are more scary. ~~Anon Once more, another year, another Halloween and another opportunity for me to share something spooky with you. No ghost photos this year. Not…
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The Journey’s End 3: Inside Wimborne Minster-The Man In The Wall & The Chained Library
[Wimborne Minster. The Church of St Cuthburga. Wimborne, Dorset. Photo is mine.] The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it. ~~Anon Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. ~~Thomas Gray Elegy…
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Journey’s End 2: Ringo Blaze & The Screaming Toilet Fish From Hell
[The White Hart Pub. The same place I remember so well. But, not the same place I found a few nights ago. Photo is mine.] Me to my brother, Dan: They call themselves Ringo Blaze & The Screaming Toilet Fish From Hell. Eh? My brother, Dan to me: Green or purple eight inch spiked mohawk.…
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The Journey’s End 1: Winchester Cathedral
[In the nave of Winchester Cathedral. A man stands at a mirror, allowing the viewer to study and admire the vaulting of the ceiling without cracking a vertebra in one’s upper neck. Photo is mine.] Winchester Cathedral You’re bringing me down You stood and you watched as My baby left town. ~~New Vaudeville Band It…
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Judge Wyndham’s Oak
[The Celtic Tree of Life. Source: Google search. CelticArtStudio.] Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening earth. ~~Tagore A few days ago, my friend, Tim, asked me if he had ever taken me to see Judge Wyndham’s Oak. I said that I have no recollection of such a visit. He said,…
patrickjegan 