It was one of the last nights of The Big Freeze, 16 January, 2018. Doing a new-normal walk-about to check for frozen pipes, WHAT WAS THAT? It couldn’t be! No one would believe it. I ran inside to get the camera to give credence to what my eyes witnessed. Not being gone more than a few seconds, OH NO! They
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It’s four a.m. and my creative spirit is at its height. I sit in my old Morris chair thinking, gently hitting the keyboard on my laptop. From the bed Ernie looks over as if to say, “Do you know what time it is?” Of course I do, and so does my brain. It has a mind of its own. What
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He is twenty-five pounds of muscle and skills that come from an unknown heritage. [Although that is about to change with a doggy DNA kit sitting just over there.] One of his favorite pastimes is sniffing out small animals. Principally, we’re talking about rabbits, the wild ones that hang out on your property and eat your garden clean. [They are
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[This story first appeared in 2005 in a website I had with my daughter. As we begin a new year – 2017 – looking back self-critically continues a habit of mine. With that a piece is offered which includes description of one of the most inspiring sporting events of all time: the running of The Preakness Stakes horse race in
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It began in the Roaring Twenties and went on for decades, at least into the Forties. The world’s best cookie had boys lined up every Christmas season. The location: 96 Clay Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. The fact that there were four – count ‘em – pretty girls of different ages inside the modest wooden-framed house where the baking was
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Well, the laws of celestial bodies have finally kicked in and summer is a thing of the past. Although here in south central Texas you still have to look over your shoulder because you never really know when heat will return like a tenant – with good riddance – you evicted. The point was well made last night listening to
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In the classic 1939 movie Hunchback of Notre Dame hump-backed bell-ringer Quasimodo [played by Charles Laughton] from a deaf judge receives a sentence of fifty lashes.[*] From the pillory after the last one he begs for a drink of “ Water. Water.” The masses guffaw derisively. Only the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda dares to walk through the hushed throng and
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This afternoon my memory was jogged as I wandered inside the local Walmart. There they were stacked up in an aisle so that you couldn’t avoid them: Twinkies. I tried to just walk-on-by but the smile on my face forced a U-turn to pick up a box. The fact that they are both Limited Edition and Key Lime Slimed only added to the
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It could be a guy thing: appreciating all kinds of tools. And I am not talking about ubiquitous, electronic gizmos. The subject is tactile instruments that you hold in your two hands to accomplish a task: forged steel, careful twists of aluminum or sculpted wood. It might even be a combination of all three and more. For example, I have
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Comfort food. We all have at least one. What’s yours? One of mine is Dunkin Donuts, but not just any of their assorted shapes and tastes. I fall victim to The French Cruller. Oo la la, sooooo good it is enough to make Marie Antoinette say, “Let them eat French Crullers”. Until a few years ago there weren’t any Dunkin’s
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