(Shuttle Discovery flies down the National Mall 17 April 2012 in a last pass of glory. Photo CBS News.) My knee feels better today but my back is killing me. One step forward and half a step back, I guess. But life is good. I was thinking that, among other things, when the Shuttle Discovery […]

My eyes blinked open early this morning, but it was late for being early. I had slept straight through from nine or so to only an hour short of the alarm. I had pushed it a little- I am trying to walk with the stupid brace and the stupid cane, experimenting with geezerhood on the […]

(The Titanic Memorial on the placid banks of the Potomac, Washington’s gateway to the world ocean. The statue, carved from a single block of granite, depicts a partially clothed First Class male passenger. Photo Wikipedia.) Sorry campers, this is late. AOL, that creaky excuse for an e-mail system, got me this morning. No pictures meant […]

There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.” – Dave Barry (Vintage photo of a squadron of Supermarine Spitfires in echelon formation. Photo RAF) I had more time than usual on my hands this bright Sunday morning. The drunks came back rom the bar about 0400, filled with merriment and the joy […]

(Mac and Ed D. Photo Socotra). I pushed it. Fridays are like that, I have come to find. I try to take care of myself during the week, wear the brace, so my exercises to loosen the knot above the left knee. I feel better. I wear the stupid brace on the leg to the […]

(South Koreans watch a TV screen showing a graphic of North Korea’s rocket launch, at a train station in Seoul, April 13, 2012. A lot of other people were watching, too. Photo Voice of America.)   I am moving kind of slow this morning- the knee is coming along, slowly, but the first moments of […]

(Owsley Stanley, left, with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in a 1969 publicity photograph. Mr. Stanley was a financial backer of the Dead and also provided the band with a supply of LSD. Photo Rosie McGee, via Reuters) Sorry to drag you into this fevered dream of long ago. Oh, hell, no I am […]

What is history, but a fable agreed upon? -Napoleon Bonaparte (Day Laborer Ray Crump is arrested as the only suspect in Mary Pinchot Meyers execution. Photo Washington Post) Mid-October in Washington is about as good as it gets here in Your Nation’s Capital. There are those who love the Spring, and it is delightful and […]

(The Fugs, live in 1966.) It certainly does not get less crazy as the time passes. What an astonishing decade it was. We have been talking about the events between the assassination of a President, and the murder of one of his many lovers on the towpath of the C&O Canal a year later. The […]

If you are of a certain age, you will remember Timothy Leary with a mixture of fascination, awe or disgust. He was the High Priest of Acid, the original Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out. He was an icon of the age, and the subject of the Moody Blues song “Legend of a Mind” […]