(The Former President, Departing- AP Photo) I was going to do the right thing, or at least the thing with the least risk. I was going to curl up like a hedgehog, like the Washington Cave-Dwellers of old, and pretend that two million people were not streaming into the city on bus and bicycle, on […]

(Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage)   It is inauguration day in Washington, and the place is locked-down, and jammed to the gills. Route 50 is eerily empty. At this hour it is normally a solid wave of steel and plastic headed into the capital. It is not, this morning.   You can feel something in the […]

 (America’s Promise- AP Photo) Loudoun- I could feel the rising tide as I crossed delicately into Loudoun County. The plane from New Orleans was due shortly after four. Based on the number of cars, sleek black Livery Limos and stretch monstrosities, there were a lot of them coming into Dulles this slate gray afternoon.   […]

(Old Hickory, 1829 Inauguration)   This is a solid morning, solid in the way that the sky has a certain density of cloud the color of steel, and the chill has brought all the molecules together in the most compact package. The antithesis of the expanding effervescence of the springtime: there is a palpable texture to this atmosphere that […]

(Wingwalkers) Leaving Cleveland one time I was seated in the rear of a commercial jet. It was a DC-9, a nice comfy single-aisle aircraft designed for multiple quick turn-around flights. Its reputation for reliability and efficiency drove strong sales, and it was one of the most successful commercial jets of the era.   Many found […]

(Ernie at rest)   It is colder here than it has been in years. Bitter, biting cold that blows right through and chills the very blood. This cold front is the great divide between the long slide into winter and the slow climb back out of it. It is a simple trick. We just have […]

(The construction site) My mouth felt like an Iranian road crew had been working on a project overnight, and some of the concrete had not set up properly.   I took a couple Motrin first thing to see if I could kill the dull ache that radiated from the jaw upward toward my temple. I […]

(Paula Lloyd, Hero)   I had a story in the can for this morning. It was a titanic story, two days in the making, full of sound and fury and signifying precisely nothing. It was a humorous account of outsourcing and the triumph of the flat-pack marketing scheme that IKEA developed and which has been […]

(Old School Analog television dial) There is a chill wind blowing against the flank of Big Pink. It sneaks trough the chinks in the old windows and the draft of cold air creeps along the floor and over my bunny slippers. You don’t have to bear with me, though I beg your indulgence as we […]

(The Fence)   With the battle raging in Gaza, it is hard not to think of fences, and intractable problems and sorrow. There is no solution I am aware of to that situation, except that we are tethered to the problem by history as surely as the Palestinians and Israelis are shackled to it by […]