PHILADELPHIA — Besides touring the famed historical spots in the birthplace of America, several other interesting venues landed on our mostly unplanned itinerary, which might be of interest to readers considering a trip to Philly — a friendly, easy-to-get-around city that vies for the top of our list of American cities to visit. Here are some suggestions after our trip there. I heard from several Facebook friends responding to a call for advice before we headed north. So I am returning the favor based on our limited time in the City of Brotherly Love.
First off, you should consider buying...
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PHILADELPHIA — This is our first trip to the birthplace of America, a fitting place to visit just before Independence Day. The weather is just slightly cooler than Behind the Pine Curtain, just enough to make it tolerable to walk these historic streets. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I booked a hotel across the street from Independence Hall, where both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were crafted, debated and ultimately adopted by the Founding Fathers — a term that is a bit cringeworthy but accurate. White men ran the show in 1776.
So let us praise Betsy Ross,...
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PHILADELPHIA — It is 2 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I am sitting in a hotel bathroom typing away because insomnia has again rudely reared its annoying head on our first night of a short trip to this historic city. I am trying not to wake my Beautiful Mystery Companion. The bathroom is the only place to not do so, without heading down to the lobby. The clatter of the hotel room door opening and closing into the hallway would no doubt wake her. Best to hide in the bathroom, laptop on the sink counter, the room’s only chair rolled inside. I keep banging my knees against the shelf beneath the sink,...
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“I’m 95 [expletive] years old with one foot in the grave and I can barely move. I know I’m in overtime. So everything in your life becomes more meaningful.
And one of the last things I want to be able to see is for the Celtics to hang up banner No. 18.”
— Bob Cousy, Boston Celtics, 1950-1963
Bob Cousy got his wish.
Cousy is generally considered the greatest point guard of his era. He played on six NBA championship teams when I was a young child growing up in New Hampshire, listening to gravelly voiced announcer Johnny Most call the games on AM radio. I was 8 when the “Houdini...
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More (mis)adventures in hobby farming, here at Three Geese Farm, where recent torrential rains threatened to send Glade and Witcher creeks out of banks and left a chunk of our land temporarily submerged.
I fear the imminent official arrival of summer mirrors last year, when the deluges of late spring promptly stopped as a heat dome covered the state and rudely refused to leave. Not that there is much to be done, other than endure it and plot escape routes to cooler climes. The grass grows ridiculously quickly as I watch helplessly, since the zero-turn mower is still in the shop, awaiting replacement...
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“If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!”
— Umberto Eco
My medicine/book closet, as Italian historian and philosopher Umberto Eco charmingly called it, is mighty close to full. The only solution, of course, is to build more bookshelves — more space for additional medicine to cure what ails me. Or at least to help...
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My phone buzzes every few minutes these days. I keep it on vibrate-only nearly all the time so as not to annoy other people with its chirps and beeps. Or myself for that matter. Some of the alerts come from the major news outlets I follow to ascertain what fresh hell awaits us today. There is never a lack of news to bring one down a bit.
To counteract the spate of depressing information flashing across my phone, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I now get a bevy of notifications from our new high-tech bird feeder. It was a Mother’s Day gift that we can all enjoy — continual...
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TYLER — Gatsby is on full alert. He sits patiently on his doggie yoga mat, wearing an official therapy dog vest, looking up with his tail slightly wagging as another batch of elementary school students head our way. They arrive at our station on a bench on the sidewalk along the school parking lot. At the behest of their teacher, they sit in front of Gatsby, our cavapoo rescue dog, while I go through my brief spiel.
“This is Gatsby. He is a registered therapy dog. That means his primary job is to make people happy,” I tell them. They nod and scootch closer to Gatsby. Soon, it is time to stand...
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DESTIN, FLORIDA — The wind is whipping from the south-southwest at up to 25 mph Another band of storms has rolled in from the sea, sending up whitecaps along the beach as the waves slide to shore. Thunder peals in the distance. The beach is abandoned on this mid-May Monday afternoon, all the beach chairs safely inside their storage boxes before being sent careening down the sand. Gulls fly about, buffeted to-and-fro from the wind. I am sitting on a fourth-floor balcony of our condo, wearing a hoodie, and feeling pleasantly chilly. An especially stiff gust of wind compels me to flip the hood up over...
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Yes, I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks
— Noah Kahan, “Stick Season’
Stick season in Vermont is the period between fall and winter, when the leaves have tumbled to the ground, but the snow has not started falling — a time of transition. Kahan is a young singer-songwriter who is heavy on my playlist in East Texas’ current season – mowing time.
I have been mowing around the margins since the grass began coming back, mainly the fenced backyard and close to the house, while leaving much of the acreage alone until the wildflowers went to seed.
Thus, on May 3, after...
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