You wanna go where everybody knows your name.
— Theme song from “Cheers”
Back Bay, Boston – Nobody knows our name here on Beacon Street, as we hop off the Old Town Trolley, just up from Boston Common. John Kerry, the former senator and presidential nominee, and his wife, Teresa Heinz, live nearby in one of the brownstones that grace the narrow streets of Beacon Hill. I once tried to figure out which one was their home, to no avail. It is unlikely they would have...
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I am about to offload a few boxes of books to my older daughters, Meredith and Kasey. I have no choice in the matter. There are books in every room of this big ol’ house. My study contains two walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that have reached capacity. All the other places for books in bedrooms and living areas are filled as well.
Something has to give. I will start with fiction, especially old best-sellers that I will never read again or need for reference — Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Tony Hillerman. I’m loath to relinquish any biographies, histories or other nonfiction. I might need...
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I am about to offload a few boxes of books to my older daughters, Meredith and Kasey. I have no choice in the matter. There are books in every room of this big ol’ house. My study contains two walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that have reached capacity. All the other places for books in bedrooms and living areas are filled as well.
Something has to give. I will start with fiction, especially old best-sellers that I will never read again or need for reference — Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Tony Hillerman. I’m loath to relinquish any biographies, histories or other nonfiction. I might...
Read more...
Many years after my paternal grandfather, Carl Borders, left Wyoming, he continued to subscribe to The Douglas Budget and Converse County Review. He and his father had left Illinois in 1918 to homestead 640 acres in Converse County, about 50 miles northwest of Douglas, which then had a population of about 2,300. It now has about 6,500 residents.
Although he left Wyoming in the mid-1940s to pursue a career as a professional Boy Scout, Grampa Borders continued to subscribe to the weekly paper. This was when folks had to rely on the paper to find out what was happening in places they used to live....
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We held an eighth-grade graduation party for our nephew, Connor, last weekend. He is about to enter high school, which boggles my mind. It seems it was just yesterday that I met him at an Easter egg hunt when he was 3. Connor is now slightly taller than me, which isn’t saying much, but there is still considerable growth potential. He and his dad, Jim, are two of my favorite people.
Connor and his buddy, Jacob, took a break from swimming in the pool, at which point Jim announced he would show all of us the age-old tradition of worm grunting. We headed outside to what most folks might call a mulch...
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