Red Star It is bitter cold for a Virginia December. The poor Redskins froze their butts off up in Baltimore, losing to the Ravens in the moist cold air that embraced the harbor. So did the visiting Cowboys to the west, who had to leave the moderate climes of North Dallas to shiver at the […]

 (USS Arizona, Dec 7th, 1941, AP File Photo)  It is the 7th of December, and it should never pass without mention. I actually think of it every day, just like I did when I took the ferry from the naval base to go to work, gliding by the hulk of the Arizona on the way. Since then, I purchased […]

(the Gateway)  I suspect the week was long because of the lingering consequences of the drive. I would directly attribute it to the long tall black coffee I purchased at the Gateway, the rest plaza at the at the top of the long hill the sweeps down- or up- from below the great falls of […]

(The revolt)   It is not odd that I find myself a Decemberist this morning, You and I share that by the inexorable turning of the globe and the progress of the planet around the sun. The chill darkness cloaks us, and our social adaptation is to conduct a series of parties and festivities to […]

(Grandma’s City Chicken)   The rain was the Marine’s benediction, softening the soil.   With the ceremony was done, we maneuvered the vehicles out of the narrow roads in the city of the dead and got back on the highway. We formed a little caravan and drove up the road to the old Catholic cemetery […]

  Postage stamp of ‘The Thousand Yard Stare’    The road snaked up the low hills that overlook Bellaire. Steep at times, the asphalt was cracked and narrow driveways led off from the curves into little houses perched perilously on the slope. Most of the cars seemed to be operable to some degree, and I […]

(Lincoln, with snow and parking ticket) I have to say that if you are going to drive nearly two thousand miles on a Holiday Weekend, a big Detroit car is the way to go. The paper that was delivered yesterday to the house on the bluff above the Bay in northern Michigan, talked about General […]

  Dammit, Bill. How could you do this to all your fans?  I know there was some major fence-building to be done with the Clintons. But to get aced out by Billary for State is just demeaning. And then to settle for Commerce. Jeeze. Where are we going to go with that? I had to think fast. […]

We were at the bar last night, and the Capital City Brewery was doing a roaring business. We normally have the far left corner of the big horseshoe under the towering vats of micro-brew to ourselves, but we wound up jammed against a party of women lawyers having a farewell party for one of their […]

(Bob Barker)   OK- I got it.   You have suffered through the Bonus Army, and more than a few have sampled the offers, interspersed with bouts of small but profound sadness and wonder at the ways of the wider world. One Big Pink friend skims these things for portents about how I am doing, […]