The English Premier League commentators have this great catchword they go to every so often: “talisman”. A soccer club’s “talisman” is its best player, or longest serving. The player with whom all good things happen. Through whom all good things happen. Like in “Reservoir Dogs” when Nice Guy Eddie calls Vic (“Mr. Blonde”) Vega a walking rabbit’s foot. Think the... READ MORE >
Of course, I had to start my newest hobby on the day of the ice storm. It’s like trying to quit drinking on the day you break your kneecap: of all the days in your too-long life to break your kneecap, you break it on the day when you don’t have anything to anesthetize with. I broke my kneecap once... READ MORE >
Our Polar girls went to the soccer State Championship game at the Dome the autumn of my senior year. The warm and airy, blue and green, plastic and nylon and concrete Dome. Not very outdoors y. Mike Ditka called it the “Rollerdome”; he actually put on rollerskates before one Bears game just to ridicule us, and was out there like... READ MORE >
“Try your best” was one of those commandments that ol’ Huck Finn had a spotty track record with. To the judge or auntie or his paw or the town in general, he wasn’t trying to any good purposes, or applying himself to being a productive citizen. He wasn’t trying none too hard at the other precepts or commandments or norms.... READ MORE >
Sorry. I don’t have time to think when I’m on the trail in the woods with my brother either behind or in front of me (we simply do not often walk side-by-side), with “The Baddest Girls in Cook County.” Daphne the English cocker spaniel stopping and staring at me too long, so I cast her off. Foxy the Brittany spaniel... READ MORE >
I love old ladies. Because they are so easy to please. Just take care of them, love them, and work your butt off for them. Use some racy humor. Be mostly honest about yourself. They probably don’t understand us developmentally arrested boys of Generation X, or the movie “Fight Club.” But when you love them and take care of them,... READ MORE >
I cannot compose an essay in which I describe all of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Say, rather, that I choose not to. I choose not to ask that of my editor and publisher. The hardest things I have done in my life mostly have not been done in the out-of-doors and do not belong in... READ MORE >
I recently read some snippets or tidbits from various Up North, Lake Superior, North Shore artists and poets and craftspeople. They seemed so joyful, so full of life and happiness. Their work was a celebration. Their lives were filled with gratitude and amazement at the small things of nature – like Indian pipes (Monotropa uniflora) – to the great –... READ MORE >
The trail went through the woods, and although a white-tailed deer used it once in a while, it wasn’t a deer trail because it started from nowhere and because the woods were even and not special and not habitat, which was a concept I was learning about. In five minutes, you were deeper in the woods and the truck was... READ MORE >
Back in Southeast Asia when I taught evening classes at an English language school, I made it a habit to set aside some time at the beginning of each class period to answer any questions that the students might have generated in the time since our last class. But before the class period started at all it was my compulsion... READ MORE >
