A 15-year-old Canadian girl committed suicide on Oct. 10, driven to despair by cyber-bullying online through Facebook and emails, and in person as well. Amanda Todd made the sad mistake of sending a semi-nude photo of herself to a man a few years ago. To summarize, he posted the photo online. The bullying made her life a living hell to the point that, after several attempts, she killed herself last week. I hope the creep who started all this is found and goes to prison. As for the cruelty that resulted, well as Springsteen once sang, “I guess there is just a meanness in this world.” It is just...
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Rosie the Wonder Dog and I stopped in the post-dawn the other day. The sun barely peeked over the trees that line the power line right-of-way that cuts along the walking trail. A doe and two fawns grazed about 50 feet away, unaware of our presence. Rosie sat quietly and watched. She is not a barking dog, for which I am grateful. Obedience school worked. She was an A- student. After a few moments we left the deer in peace, enjoying the cool air, the glistening dew, the leaves beginning to turn color. At least I was. Rosie wasn’t saying much.
I last saw the deer on the trail several weeks earlier....
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California is once again on the bleeding edge of technology. Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law making it legal for driverless cars to ramble down highways, the caveat being for now that somebody has to be in the driver’s seat in case something goes awry. This allows companies such as Google and others to continue to do research on self-driving cars. Apparently states such as California see this as the Next Big Thing in automotive technology.
This would free up people work on their laptops while commuting to work, cut down on accidents since all these driverless vehicles would presumably communicate...
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I recently subscribed to the Sunday print edition of the New York Times. It now lands with a whomp in the front yard. At least it must, though I haven’t beaten the carrier to the driveway to witness this event. The circulation department offered the print edition for less than I was paying for digital-only access, the fodder of which is required for my modest freelance sideline writing editorials.
It takes the entire week to read the paper. Despite the calamity that has struck my former profession, the Gray Lady is still thick enough to kill a squirrel if it lands upon one in the pre-dawn...
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As I write this, the Boston Red Sox made it official: they can finish no better than .500 this season. To do that they will have to win their final 14 games, which appears about as likely as Mitt Romney winning a Friend of the Poor award. The team’s management effectively threw in the towel in August and started dealing off players. Look for more to head to the sale barn when the season ends — as well as the usual sacrificial offerings to the baseball gods of manager Bobby Valentine and other front-office personnel. Heads will roll. After last season’s spectacular September collapse, followed...
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The freshman volleyball team clearly was new to the game. The match was a last-minute schedule change. Someone overhead one parent remark that the girls on this squad had never played volleyball until this season. By ninth grade, most girls have competed at least three years, starting in sixth grade.
The team came over from Shreveport, an hour’s drive away by car, a bit longer on a school bus. Only a few parents drove over for the 5 p.m. match. The squad contained only six players, the minimum necessary to field a team. The bench was empty. The team they were playing — on which our daughter...
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I was walking Rosie the Wonder Dog last week along the Boorman Trail, listening to NPR and pining for autumn. The oak leaves have begun to fall in our yard. That is one of the few signs that summer is considering a departure. It will leave, I know, but not soon enough for me.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion called in the midst of this reverie and asked where I was. We walk in tag-team sequence now that school has begun. She walks first while I rouse the child, who is slowly adapting to getting up early enough to get to high school in time. I walk with Rosie while my BMC gets ready for work, then...
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The death of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, invariably brought back memories for those of us old enough to recall that event — especially if you were a space nut like me. I didn’t particularly want to be an astronaut. Well, I did, but quickly realized being myopic, not especially good at science and shrimp-sized were not exactly the Right Stuff that NASA sought.
I got hooked on space exploration after Alan Shepherd rode on the back seat of a red convertible in a parade through our hometown in New Hampshire, after his brief ride into space in the early 1960s. Then my Uncle...
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Mississippi Delta is shining like a National guitar
— “Graceland,” by Paul Simon
MEMPHIS, TENN. — We crossed that scary bridge (at least to us) over the Mississippi River, just as the sun was setting on a Friday evening and took the first exit into West Memphis, to downtown. Lighted, round horse-drawn Cinderella-like carriages vied for passengers with the electric trolleys that clang along Main Street. This was our last getaway of the summer, sans child, just my Beautiful Mystery Companion and me enjoying a quick trip to Memphis.
Apparently, we were the only tourists in town...
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The convent table is a bit battered and dirty. Dirt daubers have built homes beneath a few of the table’s leaves. A few pieces of the intricately carved cross-pieced legs have chunks missing. Several more are loose. For more than a decade, the convent table has sat unused in the carport’s storeroom behind my father in-law’s house. It begs for a twofold restoration. It deserves to be brought back to its former grandeur because it once was a handsome table, which with all its leaves likely could seat 16. And the convent table deserves to be inside a home, gracing a dining room, its surface...
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