Sir Paul McCartney was the final guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, whose 11-year run ended in late May to widespread lamentation, including from me. It had been a weeknight staple in our home, although we always watched it a day later on its streaming platform. Watching TV at 10:30 p.m. is no longer on our dance card. The show ended joyfully in its last episode, with the former Beatle leading a contingent of famed musicians — Jon Batiste, Elvis Costello, Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine, with Colbert singing backup — in Hello, Goodbye. It is hard to imagine a more perfect...
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I had a dream about Rico Petrocelli the other night.
He came up to me in a bar, or possibly a hotel lobby, extended his hand, and said, “I’m Rico Petrocelli.” I replied, “I thought I recognized you.” He looked just like the baseball card photo I found of him online. In real life, Petrocelli turns 83 this month.
Petrocelli was a two-time All-Star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. He was a key part of the Impossible Dream team of 1967, which improbably won the American League pennant after years as league doormats. That was a simpler time,...
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Every move you make
Every step you take
I'll be watching you.
— The Police
Every Breath You Take, the 1983 song by the Police, with Sting as lead singer and songwriter, came on the gym speakers the other day as we were warming up. Someone remarked, “I’ve always considered that a creepy stalking song.”
I hadn’t really thought about it, but she had a point. A little research indicates Sting wrote it after the painful breakup of his first marriage. He once said, “I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
I...
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As I toil away here at Three Geese Farm, doing all the hobby farm chores, I constantly look for labor-saving devices. I mentioned buying a fuel transfer pump, so I don’t have to balance precariously on the tractor to pour five gallons of diesel into the tank, whose cap sits on the top of the engine cover. The plan is to avoid another shoulder surgery or, likely worse, falling off the tractor and being covered in diesel fuel. With the transfer pump, I leave the can on the ground, hook the hose inside the tank, and push a button.
Most of these gadgets pop up on my Facebook feed. That app reads...
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I keep looking out the window.
It doesn’t matter where I am in this house. I gaze out the windows in whatever room I’m in. My primary closet has a window that looks out onto the front porch and the huge front yard beyond. That sounds weird, but the road is more than 100 yards away. Nobody can see me. It’s a lovely view. Our sunroom, which includes the part that holds my book-surrounded cubby, has five large picture windows. Every few minutes, I look outside.
I am looking for Ozzie the Terrorist Kitty.
That is the name he was given when we adopted him last August. The spelling is different,...
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I have been muddling my way through an interesting but fairly dense book titled Invisible Rulers, by Renée DiResta. To quote the book jacket, she “reveals how a virtual rumor mill of niche propagandists increasingly shapes public opinion.” She makes her case convincingly.
Trouble is, once that point has been made, according to my Kindle, I am only one-third of the way through the book, and I am losing interest. I don’t know if that says something about the author’s ability to hold my interest or about my inability to pay attention over the long term. Maybe both? Regardless, I intend...
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I took an actual walk down memory lane last Sunday morning, while our “fancy car,” a 2021 Toyota 4-Runner, was being detailed for the first time since we bought it used two-and-a-half years ago. Usually, I run it through a car wash that has hard-working folks at the front to spray and scrub it before it runs through the automated wash, then a woman at the end who quickly towels it off. I take advantage of the free vacuum service after that.
However, we learned days earlier that our new puppy Daisy May, whom we acquired from an animal shelter a few hours away, gets carsick easily. She is just...
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O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all of us command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
One of my earliest childhood memories is visiting the Eastern Township of Quebec, where my great-grandmother, a tiny woman we called MéMé, lived near Sherbrooke. MéMé spoke only French. Among the visiting cousins, the theory was that she knew English but refused...
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GILMER, TEXAS — A young boy, maybe 6 years old, is pulling a rusty red wagon with two rabbits in a cage. He is wearing a straw hat that nearly swallows his face, a Western shirt with images of a bronc rider, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. He is adorable. The little cowpoke is peering intently into a cage filled with white geese. He is surrounded by folks looking at cages and pens filled with all kinds of poultry, waterfowl, goats, rabbits, and dogs. This is the first of three annual East Texas Poultry Trades Day events held at the Yamboree Livestock Pavilion in Gilmer. Exhibitors have filled three...
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But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war
Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for
And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
— John Prine
Beloved troubadour John Prine wrote Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War. At a live concert I listened to on Spotify, he said the song’s idea came to him while he was a mail carrier in Chicago. Back then, Reader’s Digest was highly popular. Prine said mail carriers hated the magazine...
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