People denigrated Mike Tyson after James “Buster” Douglas, who was flabby but ready and had heart, beat him bloody in 1990. People had always made fun of Mike for his lisp and teeth and gentle nature. But suddenly people began to say he always was susceptible, never was a great threat – that he had never faced any real challenge... READ MORE >
We had a sly red fox come into the yard before dawn. You always know when an animal comes into the yard at night. The three pups catch the scent through the porch screen and jump up and run to the screen door (latched securely in two places from the inside because Foxy has figured out how to get it... READ MORE >
In mathematics, a discrete line fixed in space, bounded on the ends by two defined points, though of a finite length, is comprised of an infinite number of points along that length. Think of a yardstick: three feet in length, 35 inch marks, 71 half inch marks…on down to quarter and eighth inches, &c, &c. So too is a semi-annual... READ MORE >
We checked out a book from the library in the first grade, my little buddies and I. In the middle was a two-page spread with illustrations of a couple dozen breeds of dogs. My buddies Rob and Ron and I sat together and with #2 lead pencils on that good school art paper we practiced drawing copies of the dogs.... READ MORE >
I became a young man late. In my teens my old man had given me imperatives toward that end, sometimes suggestions like “You should study engineering,’ sometimes admonitions like “Get a job” or admonishments like “Don’t be a parasite.” It wasn’t until I was twenty-two that he said, “Be big” as fatherly advice on how to live with a broken... READ MORE >
There was a famous imprisoned writer – maybe Dostoevsky in the labor camps, or Frankl in the concentration camps, or Solzhenitsyn in the gulag – who in order to conserve paper wrote across and over the page three times, letter atop letter, word over word, sentence on sentence. We now know that the Renaissance masters painted over their previous works... READ MORE >
It was my great-grandfather and none other who taught me to sew buttons. I’m not sure how he could do it, because he shook like an old, old man from whenever I can remember him. He was very big, German, with white hairs and his fingers were very, very big. I watched and listened while he shook like a willow... READ MORE >
However, I shared a temperament with my mother. Very sensitive; at any time close to an emotion; occasionally overwhelmed by the stuff of life. I had my father’s body and intellect, but my mother’s heart and psyche. Call the former ‘soul’; call the latter ‘spirit’, or lack thereof. I was not meant for school, at least in that form or... READ MORE >
I’m taking down the few remaining Posted signs around our place. The other few have already fallen down or disintegrated over the years, falling into litter in the leaf duff. This is no great welcome mat for the steelhead fishermen. I have seen banks on the Kadunce and Devils Track rivers eroding from heavy boot traffic. Along the honey holes... READ MORE >
I’m not sure if we’ve been in lockdown or under quarantine, or what the correct word is. Many things have not changed. This time of year we walk longer up the trails and further into the woods. I can walk on bare ground on southern facing slopes, or deep under the spruce and fir. If some snow remains I step... READ MORE >
