The Arlington Civitans put on the swap meet the first Saturday of the month. It is a Red Letter day on my calendar, which I do a year in advance with my trusty Sharpie-brand laundry marker. I don’t know any Civitans personally. They are a species of public-minded people who donate this one Saturday a […]

Social Security I was reading about the markets this morning, listening to the rain beating hypnotically on the window. I turned to Paul Krugman’s column in the Times. He explained how the stock market was going to fall apart. Funny, I thought, I never worried about it when I had nothing invested and a steady […]

Lions of Spring I hope to feel the warming breeze of Spring soon, wafting up from the Gulf across Texas and Louisiana and across the upper South. The President is headed down there today, to say “Howdy!” to the people in New Orleans and ask how they are doing. It is the deadline for filing […]

The Villa of the Mysteries I fell asleep in my brown chair by the window at Big Pink last night. I was reading a revisionist assessment of the art and architecture of buried Pompeii, the pretty little town on the shoulders of Mount Vesuvius that went to ashes in a single day in year 79 […]

The snow fell yesterday, a piddling amount by upper Midwest standards, but it still pole-axed the city. I expect it will melt soon enough, and this is actually just the mirth of the heavens, giving us this crappy white stuff when we should be looking around for the first daffodils to start poking up from […]

The Wizard of Silver Hill The only time I actually talked to the Wizard was sometime after the end of DESERT STORM. I was in the Pentagon then, with an office window on the E-Ring overlooking South Parking, courtesy of someone else’s position. Uncle Jim was still alive and still mobile. I took him down-town, […]

I have wandered into the twilight land that humorist Dave Berry described  trenchantly: �There is a fine line between �hobby� and �mental illness.� I am not sure that I have not blundered across, but I will let you be the judge of that. It was raining in Arlington, and it was early on a Saturday. […]

Staff Work I have a hard time keeping up with the Admiral. Last night was no exception. He was still ready to talk as the hands on the clock slid past eleven. He is 88, and I am only moderately beyond half of that. He has the life force: I don’t know what it is, […]

SPADS The winter is not done with us. The temperature soared almost all the way to the top of the fifties yesterday, and with the exception of a few stubborn patches, the ice is gone. What has come with the change, though, are winds at tropical storm strength. They are hissing now outside, raking the […]

A story of the long war Episode One: Recall I heard this morning that the war is not lost, according to retired General Barry McCaffery, but it is sliding away from us. That was the sense of the note forwarded to me by a Dad who has two kids in the fight, one just coming […]