Autumn is a smell: woodsmoke, decaying leaves, and cinnamon. It’s a color palette too: oranges, reds, and browns. The color of the earth on fire. The air has an entirely different quality, with a crisp snap in your nose and the way the low light glows now rather than shimmers,…
Ahhh, That’s Better
It’s a story that’s been told and told again in our family. I think we tell it because it so accurately reflects who we are as a people in a way that trying to describe our little clan could never do. It’s a symbol of our love, arrogance, ego and…
I Don’t Have To Understand Jazz
“Jazz is rhythm and meaning.” — Henri Matisse The French painter Henri Matisse once said, “I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.” This is how I feel when I try to understand jazz, and to be clear, I do not understand jazz. This is not to…
I Had Something To Say But I’ve Forgotten What It Was
It has taken me the better part of half a century to learn that I am not a good public speaker. This is not due to a fear of getting on stage, or speaking to large groups of people, but a realization that my mind does not like to perform…
A Bear Of Very Little Brain
My issue with authority began at an early age. I realized early on that adults were not only infallible, but often incompetent as well. This can be a scary thing to learn as a child I suppose, but I was not deterred. I just assumed I would need to do…
The Crick Be Damned
Fifty-two is not that old really, even though I am now decidedly middle-aged, but since we raised our kids when I was especially young, it’s hard for me to imagine raising a child today. If I had a deficit of patience back then, which I most certainly did, I have…
Cutting Bait
I wasn’t there the morning they found old Bill Yawley with a knife in his chest at the fish camp, but you can be sure I heard all about it when I got back. Story went, and this was from several reliable sources, someone shoved a filet knife straight into…
Wicked This Wind Blows
Many of us, from time to time, during this peculiar period of forced isolation and rare discomfort we collectively find ourselves, will indulge the desire to protest our current situation, even as we sit there, idle in our climate controlled abode, full of all manner of food and drink, replete…
Seven Seconds
It’s been thirty days since I last had a drink. I don’t know why thirty days holds such a big place in sober circles, but it does. I guess it’s as good a marker as any. A month. Four weeks. Long enough to mean something and at the same time,…
America’s Game
One of the hardest things to endure when it comes to the global COVID-19 pandemic—for me at least—has been the lack of baseball. To those who are not fans of the game, or sports in general, this might seem callous or even downright offensive in light of the death and…