Senior Executive Jerry and I stay in touch- he is still in the government, I am not, and it is fun catching up on the old colleagues who still labor in the madness. He is an avid reader and we compare book lists and new favorites when we get together at Willow. He also shares […]

It was summer in 1979. I had a list of things to do when I got to Bangkok, and a couple things to keep a weather eye on. I made the first liberty boat- local hire, painted pastel pink and watched the sliver of the new moon rising above the sunset as the gigantic gray […]

I don’t have it this morning, sorry. I was going to thrill you with a bag-dragging tale about Shanghai in 1997, but I can’t find the pictures that I had digitized years ago. If I get to it I will bore you with an integrated presentation It was a semi-busy week, a lot of thoughts […]

  I stood on the 50thth Floor of a proud new building on the bank of the river. She lay there below me, enigmatic. Her curves and contours were lit by the full-silver moon. She showed her considerable charms with an insouciant and aggressive charm. For a woman of her age she carried it well. […]

The Giants won the world series and there was widespread rioting. I missed that part, but it was a grand series for a change. I got wrapped up in some hazy memories about organizing the Pariah States Cool Hotels tour for Congressman Bill. The agony of the details and preparation had faded- the hotels were […]

(Evergreen Air- EVA- 747 at SFO, 1996). It was Spring of 1996 in Washington, and the first glow of sweat for the summer to come was under the collar of my Brooks Brothers shirt. The Cherry Blossoms were out. Life was good. Isobel, Congressman Bill’s Chief of Staff called me on my flip phon. I […]

It is my contention that part of the attraction of Hong Kong is that the city so many of us love and remember fondly is actually another place- a city named Shanghai. The Fall of the Kuomintang to the Reds caused enormous dislocation in the most western and amazing city in all the Far East- […]

That had to be the nicest weekend of the Fall. I stopped by the Belmont Distillery to pick up a couple bottles of their Copper Kettle Vodka to enjoy after the chores, and marveled at the quality of the rich blue cloudless skies. I puttered on the bushes and did some trimming around the farmhouse, […]

I have a festival of Blue Jays on the lawn- I don’t know what they are after, but the gone-to-seed garden plot seems to be of particular attraction for the members of the species Cyanocitta Cristata. They are big fellows, a kind we do not see up in Arlington. There is a forecast for temperatures […]

Gentle readers, there were a lot of comments about a retrospective trip to the pearl of the East, the lovely city of Hong Kong. Some are too good not to compile, so here goes. It beats talking about crazed Islamists and Ebola and politics, wouldn’t you agree? A lovely lady in Rancho Santa Fe wrote: […]