Windy City Ugh. New week dawning and I am not quite back in the ballgame, so to speak. Baseball overdose, possibly. It was fun, though. Wrigley Field is the last of a whole generation of ballparks, a stadium that is not a gigantic concrete island surrounded by acres of black asphalt parking lots at a junction […]

The Arena The Arena lives, and the one next door here in Wrigleyville is one that resonates in me. It is of an era- Fenway and Briggs were the two that I knew, Briggs Stadium in Detroit the best. There is a last-ditch attempt to save a section of stands at Briggs, and the dugouts […]

We were at the Unitarian-Universalist church across the big ditch of Route 50. When I walked in the average age of the crowd dropped at least a year, and I am no spring chicken. I knew they were gong to be spring-loaded with concern, and was prepared to listen to a certain amount of the […]

The Author’s 10-inch Swiss Diamond Fry Pan It is moving too fast, way too fast. Hardly time to think about the consequences of anything. The rains are coming hard today, presaging a big change.   I have a pal who is going to testify before the Congress of These United States, one courageous woman who […]

I did not get to the pool until late.   The Czech lifeguard was asleep in his chair by the gate, and I was all alone to do my exercise. I was not late because of sloth, mind you, though not because I worked late. I had a chance to cook for my older boy, […]

Crusading Prosecutor Tom Dewey   I have not got to the Times yet this morning, the obligatory plunge in the miasma of whatever it is New York wants us to think on this day. Before dawn it was still cool, and the brain-cooking heat had not started to rise.   I rose thinking about the […]

Picture Postcard of the Railroad Station and Downtown Bay City, circa 1900   I have been daydreaming about North Michigan lately. I don’t do that so much in the winter, but I cannot help myself when the steam rises up out of the ground on the flat banks of the wrong=2 0side of the Potomac […]

Trish from Australia. Vic at far right in white shirt. Photo by EVA RUSSO/Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH   It is impossible to forget what happened here in Richmond, particularly if you live in a city that calls itself the Capital of the Free World. This city had the same aspiratio n, to be known in the same […]

Live Fast I’m headed for Richmond this morning, capital of the Old South. There is a motorcycle dealership down there that has a training program for how to ride one. The State insists upon it, and I think it is a skill that would be useful to have in the coming world that will have […]

  I am way behind this morning- sleep is good, and this was a hell of a week for frantic activity- but now it is pushing eight o’clock and I have a road trip to accomplish this afternoon, and the pool is going to be a miss altogether if I do not get my ass […]