(688 Chester Street, Grabbingham, Michigan. Photo Socotra.) Thanks for suffering through the whole Detroit thing with me. I was riding on a bus yesterday, not knowing precisely what indignity I was going to suffer at the hands of the national air transportation system, but knowing, as you do, that something awful was in store under […]

Gentle Readers, It is time to leave the Wolverine State behind for now. Raven and Magpie will get by for the next few days, I am confident, and my intrepid sister Anook of the North will arrive shortly to minister to their needs and give Magpie a break from the constant wear of her partner […]

  (Raven in his shotgun seat in the rental SUV. Photo Socotra.) This was an interesting trip Up North, if you care for things that are “Interesting.” I don’t. Some things got done, and for the first time in a long while I did not spend a day knocking my head against a wall screwing […]

(Terra Haute, September 1944. Photo credits below.) The trains came together and crashed with a sound. That people could hear for miles around. The fog was so heavy, the engineer could not see. Nor would he ever know what the outcome would be. Two cars held airmen who’d flown missions over Italy. Some were killed, […]

(Magpie and Dee at Potemkin Village. They have eight children between them, and happy Mother’s Day! Photo Socotra.) It is Mother’s Day, and I got up earlier than the northern Michigan dawn to get m crap out of the way before dealing with that of the folks. I have to do the brunch at the […]

There was a nice Easter wooden thing at the door to the apartment in Potemkin Village Assisted Living when I arrived, and after knocking on the door, I saw the Mother’s Day flowers from the kids looked great. Magpie was delighted to see me: “We were so worried,” she exclaimed brightly. There was a flicker […]

I wound up pestering some pals for a chain recipe scam that I got from a good pal, who knows about the “Cloak and Dagger Cook-Book,” and I shotgunned it out without thinking. I was agitated about that cop and his speed gun down in Ogemaw County, and the $100 ticket that is sitting in […]

(Hotel Eddystone near the Masonic Temple. Nothing worth anything is left in the well-built structure. Photo Socotra.) Well, the conference wraps this morning and it is soon going to be my happy feet tapping on the gas pedal of some anonymous rental on the concrete strip north. It is more than a little emotional. Not […]

(Book-Cadillac Hotel, in the Day.) Day three in Detroit marks the beginning of the season of discontent. The easy stuff has been done, the free parties are over, and the prospect of breaking it all down and heading on to the next thing looms. My comrades were starting to fade, as was I, but there […]

You could feel the energy at the Conference- not the one the NAACP was having down the massive halls of the Cobo Regional Convention Center, but the Defense Information Technology convocation. The Director made an appearance by the miracle of video-teleconference. As you might imagine, the take-down of Osama bin Laden and the posturing of […]