In the part of America in which I spent many years, this was a marvelous day to combine ridding ourselves of the last vestiges of holiday merriment and acceptance of the growing horror that the new year was actually starting. This week used to be “next year.” That is part of our tradition, anyway, but […]

I just typed it for the second time. The new number still sends an electric thrill up my gnarled knuckles. Finally, 2020 is behind us and all will be well! I think that was the second use of an exclamation point for this bold new year. It was exciting! (Third time! Is there a limit […]

Sorry- I had intended to leave the New Year to yesterday and on the Eve of 2021, relax with the fire in the background. I fully intended to have some happy thoughts about the end of this year and the start of another. Hopefully a better one. That is a pretty low bar. Instead, there […]

The Royal Family- the descendants of the Kings who threw us out of our old homes- had a saying about bad years. They said it in Latin, to make it more prestigious sounding. “Annus Horribilis” has a grander aura than the mild profanity that has accompanied each month of 2020. It would be more appropriate […]

So, like everyone these days, I was chatting with one of my circles of pals. You have them, I am sure. They come in batches of orientation. You know the ones played out nationally in some much higher visibility. I could go into them with the acronyms we use these days for convenience. I don’t […]

In the days of old recruiting ads, there used to be one that featured the deck of an aircraft carrier, driving into the wind amid white foam. The ballet associated with bringing the ship into the wind and readying the powerful aircraft for flight was accompanied by the bold assertive remark: “Dawn Launch! Sea of […]

So, the holiday is over, gone with a faint blue flash that reminded me of something I couldn’t quite remember. To keep my mind off the other memories, I was working on a small project with a dual purpose. I have (somewhere) a pile of things that go back to days spent on what is […]

A Merry Christmas! This is a view from downslope of the barn at Refuge Farm. The snow- no kidding- is falling lightly on this Christmas morning. It is enough to gently accumulate just a bit and bring back memories of the kids and their wild excitement, and the parallel wild excitement we shared all those […]

Screen Shot 2020-12-24 at 11.06.57 AM.png It is raining here, just south of the Rappahannock River. Cold rain, but filled with a certain mirth at the warmth of the fire inside, good company, and the promise of a new year less filled with strife and uncertainty. I ran across an old clip of what a […]

20 December 2020 Editor’s Note: This popped up as I was trying to organize a compendium of official travel to some odd places- Delhi, Zagreb, Rangoon, Pyongyang among others. It was weird and fun. But I found some other stuff that stopped me in my tracks. This is one of them.We talked about th end […]