Category: Real and Unreal Adventures
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Do You Really Want To Go There?
It’s early Autumn. The air is crisp. The broad leaves of the oaks and maples are sharp and bright in the sun. Against the darker conifers, the reds and yellows are more muted–less distinct and less joyful. There is a lane. It seems to possess a faint voice calling for you to follow to wherever…
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The Migratory Habits of the Boomers
In this lecture we will explore the migratory habits of certain unusual groups of animals. Let us begin by taking a glance at the Puffins of the North Atlantic. They migrate to a big rugged and very isolated rock somewhere in the waters of the Atlantic. There they breed. Then they migrate somewhere. It’s totally…
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Playing Scrabble On Facebook With Your Daughter: The Agony And The Ecstasy
There is on odious, evil and insistent karma that floats and follows me everywhere. Like gnats on a hot afternoon in the Adirondacks, they follow me about in my own yard to plague my very soul. Gnats (or is it the equally noxious black flies?) that have been known to drive a tundra dwelling musk ox…
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The Digital Indoor-Outdoor Thermometer From Area 51
It’s common knowledge that various agencies under the umbrella of the “Federal Government” have been conducting TOP SECRET experiments in highly secure location inside an Air Force Base in California (or Nevada or some such forgotten region of the Great American Desert). This place has been known by many “in the know” people as “Area…
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Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve VII: “Beyond The Campfire”
The autumn leaves are rustling in the chilly breeze–the chilly breeze that is coming from the lake–drifting through the trees with the promise or a threat of the coming winter. He threw another split piece of hardwood on the already warm fire. His wife looks at him when the pack of coyotes begin to howl.…
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Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve IV: “Do Ghosts Dream in Black and White?”
I broke away from the other kayakers. They were intent on finding a trail that was obscured and hidden in a small cove. It was supposed to begin on a tiny stretch of sand and among the blueberry bushes. It led to a small body of water called Loon Pond (some called it Lost Pond).…
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Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve: II “What Lies Beyond?”
If you walked this path. If you dared to enter this forest…who would you encounter? What would you encounter? Are there leaves on the branches, ever? Do wildflowers grow along the trail, ever? Was this photo taken at noon? at midnight? Are you dreaming? Having a nightmare? Or are you fully awake, your senses alert…
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Coney Island With Princess Pat and Eddie
I was on the stage of the Sideshow at Coney Island and I was standing on the thighs of a woman who was lying on a bed of real nails. Her name was Princess Pat. I’ll get back to her. I’m in New York City. We came for a few doctor appointments. It was Tuesday…
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Passports 14: The Sad Life & Lonely Death of Kitty Gray
The Tors and heathland of Dartmoor is a landscape that breeds legends. Legends, myths, mysteries and ghosts. The guidebooks tell you not to go out onto the moors when the weather is foul. When the fog descends, as it often does, and when the misty rain falls on the gorse, and on the matted shag…
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Passports 13: Getting a Leg Up–An Introduction to the Footpath Stiles of England
Footpaths are as common in England as salt grains on a Big Mac. (I’m not sure that metaphor works here, but I’ve been wanting to use it for decades.) Unlike the States, the lines between private property and the pubic right-of-way are a bit foggy, like the desolate and lonely landscapes of Dartmoor and the…
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