Author: Vic Socotra

Eleven Pipers

We here on the balcony at Big Pink are still having issues with what year we are in. There is general agreement, of course, but our index fingers still have issues. Not so with those eleven pipers down in the parking lot, who are piping away like crazy. They frightened the leaping Lords and the […]

New Years Eve, Class SIX

They say when you are over the hill you pick up speed. Maybe that is true. Certainly, the visibility improves as you roll over the crest. Some of us are over the great divide of the Holidays. Kevin McCarthy is not, at least until noon when the new Congress is sworn in. One of the […]

Basil and Gregory

You might be done with it, the holiday part, anyway. Up here in DC they don’t go back to work until tomorrow. The position of those who intend to utilize the Twelve Days of Christmas for relaxed social norms is firm. The second day of the calendar year is also utilized to permit holiday casual libation regardless of […]

Gradually, Then Suddenly

(Earnie Hemingway, second from left, celebrates the New Year with pal Gary Cooper in the year some of us were born, 1951. They are moving gradually forward in that line in Cuba at Havana’s Club Floridita. Things would transition to occur suddenly once they got a table inside). Just a quick note this morning, since […]

A Manual for Letter Writers

The Letter-Writer’s Manual For Every Occasion By E. A. Foley We wrote about stacks of stuff yesterday, since one of those stacks turned up a long-ago letter, neatly written in precise cursive script. A pal saw it and marveled at the craftsmanship in that social discipline, one that many shared nearly a hundred years ago. […]

Arrias and His Muse: New Year’s Eve 2022

The year began like any other, Full of hope, wonder, fear and surprises, Troubles and wars and rumors of war, And now another year arises. Last year was just the same in this, A bright future beckoned to all, What was possible or what would be, Just who would make that call? A New York […]

Life & Island Times: Rules

Editor’s Note: Marlow contributes one of three missives this morning. This is one about the Rules under which we should live. Later, Arrias will contribute an appreciation of our passing year in verse. Vic has a Manual on letter-writing and social conduct from a sweet lady whose future is passed. We share the memory of […]

A Letter From 1944

This is the 6th Day of Christmas, which is enforced only because Splash does not want to be accused of wasting this curious week between holidays. In order to preserve early drinking by retaining this as a “holiday” edition, Management has informed us that a simple reference to Six Geese A’ Laying will suffice to […]

All Through the House

For those of us who refuse to give up the celebration, there was a huddle last night out on the Balcony at Big Pink. We got to the bottom of one of the bottles of beneficial Spirits procured over on Fort Myer yesterday. It is the 5th Day of Christmas for the diehards, and provision of […]