(Jill St. John, Leonid Brezhnev and Dick Nixon.) I was sitting and talking to Old Jim at the end of the Willow Bar. It was fiercely and oppressively hot outside, and people in Arlington were acting out. Pedestrians were walking out in the crosswalks against the light, motorists were honking wildly and I saw more […]

(The new Willow Waif coasters at the bar. What are writers supposed to take notes on? Photo Socotra.) Everyone was bracing for what is going to come at the end of the week. Mother Nature is going to open up a can of humidity and warmth- the heat index is supposed to spike up over […]

(Garage of the house in the Little Village by the Bay. Photo Annook.) She cried. Damn. From all the traffic I read through the day on all the devices, and through the phone calls I received it was apparent that Annook had a busy day. It was bizarre. All the calls happened in pairs; no […]

(Captain “Dick” Gile, USAF, 1944, at Lavenham, East Anglia around the time of D-Day.) I suppose it is a good thing, from a public health perspective, that they have banned smoking in bars, but the scribbling on the napkins made me want to light up a Lucky. I put down my pen and looked over […]

(The Nebraska Avenue Complex in NW DC. Building 3801 is to the upper right. Photo GlobeXplorer.) “I am headed up to NSA tomorrow,” declared Mac. “They have asked me to talk about Station Hypo at Pearl, and the contributions of code-breaking to the victory at Midway.” “That is Saturday the 4th, right?” I said, waving […]

(Big Mama’s beloved 1998 Dodge Stratus ES. Photo Brown Motors.) Editor’s note: I could barrage you with two stories this morning, but instead will uncharacteristically refrain. What follows is the latest chapter of the continuing adventure of the latest visit to Raven and Big Mama, residents of the Little Village By the Bay, and the […]

(Mac and the Lovely Bea at the Willow Bar. Photo Socotra.) Well, some of you expressed concern about the lack of a story yesterday. Many more were relieved to not have to hit the “delete” button. But Mac was mildly concerned, and he said so as I slid onto a bar stool next to him, […]

It seemed that all was well with the traveler‘s from Petoskey- the little village by the bay- and afar. The previous day had found Annook, Big Mama, Annook’s family and seven other displaced Alaskans gathered together at a family styled diner in Niagara on the Lake, in Canada. All had breakfast, then some went wine […]

(Klondike Kate, circa 1906 in Dawson. Photo Virtual History) While I was tapping my toes waiting for the Comcast guy to come last night, “between five and eight” I started to read a great history of the Klondike Gold Rush. It had been sitting on the shelf for a couple years, but my interest was […]

There are reasons for everything, as you long-suffering readers must know by now. The particular form that these disjointed narratives take was spawned in a sort of roman a clef format, through the simple necessity that once upon a time (code for “sea story”) there was an implacable Agency that determined it had the authority […]