I just wasn’t expecting it. We were on the lower level of the Yale University…
Summer Storm
The sun has all but set in the muggy torpor of early evening when the storm explodes almost without warning: the pure white of lightning, pandemonium of thunder, warm wind whipping, weighty drops crashing. The deer that had come for their apples disappear into the...
Down to New England 5: Monuments, Memorials and Memories
This was the branch that most frightened me, the one most perfectly positioned to do irreparable harm to the monument. Lower and smaller branches had already been removed, opening space around the slender column surmounted by its neoclassical urn. Four of us—two on...
Down to New England 4: Earth, Air and Water
It is the light, it is the air, the dark featheriness of pine and fir, and the distinct chill of a summer’s evening. Our camp on Squam Lake in New Hampshire, my realest “home” gave me this with each visit; and now so does Maine. Whether it was the strangeness of the...
Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’: a saga of newspaper delivery
Is the trouble over? Is all my wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’—to say nothing of my incessant bellowing at customer service representatives—finally paying off? Maybe. Monday’s and Tuesday’s papers arrived in a timely fashion, around six-thirty am....