Category: Friends
Wrought with Steadfast Will
I read the new history of my school, Emma Willard School in Troy, New York and paid particular attention to the summary of my own era within those “grey walls protecting.” I am struck by the paradox of the book’s enveloping familiarity and its utter strangeness. Was this the place I spent four crucial years…
On the Gulf Coast 2
Our rental for this Florida vacation is a Kia Optima, a perfectly nice car, but not what I planned on. Dollar was offering a deal where I might get either a compact or an upgrade. Turns out that the upgrade was a Grand Caravan and there were no compacts. Backed into that automotive corner, I…
On the Gulf Coast 1
We updated the the Garmin Nuvi and lost Serena. Serena’s charming English diction tended to break down with the letter “r” but that was kinda fun, you know, the “what on earth did she just say?” giggle. With the update, the voice changed to something of slightly flattened affect, still distinctively English but something less…
The Christmas Letter – 2012
In the waning months of my “Year of Present Living” we finally got to Lithuania. Both of us acquired a whole bunch of new cousins in 2012, as well. That’s what happens when you shake those family trees with vigor and a little manic enthusiasm. Our dinner table, however, can always accommodate just one more…
Lietuva 3: The Crossroads of Lithuania
It’s gonna be a hot time in Kaunas this weekend. Two days of fun commence Saturday and on Friday workers were constructing stages and setting up sound systems from Kaunas Castle to the Botanical Garden and even on the banks of the Nemunas River. By late afternoon when we arrived at the Garden, a dozen…
At 60 you’re just getting started?
The morning of January 28 dawned bright and mild. At 11:00, doors would open to the party we had planned for ourselves to celebrate my 60th, my Dear One’s 78th, the 2nd anniversary of our marriage and my Tattooed Boy’s 30th, and all of which fall with a month’s span, give or take a couple…
Real Friends
I anthropomorphize. Pretty much everything, all the time. Of course, I idealize, too. Not only do I see creatures as human, but I see them as beings of the kind that I wish people were. I don’t always think about this tendency, but I have been more aware of it recently. While wandering through the…
An English Wedding 7: Homewood and Our History
An evening at Homewood is incontrovertible evidence that time has passed. Samantha was my classmate at Princess Helena College in Hertfordshire. The original Queen Anne building was enlarged by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) in 1908. In 1935 the house and estate of Temple Dinsley were taken over by the school when it moved…
Natalee Holloway
One can only hope that the arrest of Joran van der Sloot means that Natalee Holloway’s family will be allowed the grace of burying whatever remains of her body. The events in Peru that marked the 5th anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance have consumed the media. The focus of my thoughts and conversations has been less…
The Music of Our Lives
I am still singing our tunes. A week ago it was our 40th reunion at Emma Willard. Thirty-five members of the class of 1969 ate and drank together, hugged and squealed, wandered old haunts alone and with others. Two rehearsals prepared us no longer so vocal choristers for Chapel on Sunday and we regained at…
