(Official portrait of Speaker of the House Carl Albert, a Big Pink Resident) I stopped by Willow last night with no agenda. It was refreshing. I had forgotten my phones in the morning- the Blackberry was charging peacefully by the coffee pot and the Droid was in the cradle by the toaster oven.   I […]

(The Great Pumpkin creating mortgage-based securities. I had always suspected but never knew. Photo credit unknown, but reserved.) I am pleased not to be Tarik Aziz this morning, one of the few good things I can think of this week. The Iraqi courts sentenced him to climb the short ladder and swing by the long […]

(Election Day is coming at Big Pink. Photo Socotra.) I have been meaning to get down to Eastern Market before the Fall produce is all gone. Maybe pick up some of that smoked pepper-encrusted bacon at Canales or the Union Meat market to render down nice and crisp and crumble as a garnish for salads. […]

(The Stragglers at Army-Navy Country Club. Photo Socotra.) The dinner commemorating a quarter century of The Professionals was last night at the Army-Navy Country Club. We were on the Cocktail Porch, maybe fifty of us, most of a certain age, and it was a blast.   It was the same place where we had the […]

(Kathie Van Den Brink Meek, Jan 15, 1956 – Oct 19 2010. Photo Meek.) The gathering the other night at Willow could have gone any direction, north or south. There was reason for great sadness, and there was reason for satisfaction at twenty-five years of survival for The Professionals in an uncertain world. In the […]

(Church Spire of The Church of the Brethren, 22 October 2010, viewed from the balcony of Big Pink. Photo Socotra.) It was one of those days. You know the ones, so much significant activity that only the alcohol at the end permitted any clarity, and that, in turn, made the morning after so damned complicated. […]

(Fall leaves at Refuge Farm.)   I am a little disjointed this morning, though you probably can’t tell the difference. There is apparently a fellow named John hurtling south from New Jersey in a truck, intent on purchasing my 2003 Harley Night Train. I don’t want to get rid of it, but hey, I have […]

(USS Des Moines, CA-134, in rising gale. Oil on canvas.) Peter is a real pro, and the heart of the spirit of Willow’s bar. He snuck up in his unflappable way and filled my tulip glass to the precise level for easy listening to Mac’s story of lunch with Marshall Josef Broz Tito, Emperor of […]

(The White Palace, Belgrade, Serbia. Photo AP) I looked down at my notes on Willow’s rich wood bar. The happy hour wine made me mellow, and Mac’s stories were washing over me, not sepia toned at all, but real, as if no time had passed at all.   “The PARPRO issue was part of what […]

(First Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Europe Dwight Eisenhower in his office in Paris, 1951. US Army photo.) Monday is a fine day to stop at Willow after work, and I had a lot of questions for Mac. He enjoys the $5 bar menu and a ginger ale or two, and h is hungrier now that […]