September 2009
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Even as my hearing deteriorates, I become more and more disturbed by excessive noise. For example: coffee shops, which in any sensible world, would be oases of tranquility, have become positively uninhabitable. When I visit such a place, I do so either to talk with a friend or to read silently. I do not go…
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Ray Chapman, the most notorious of the dead-in-mid-career, was batting .300 when he was hit on the head by a spitball thrown by Carl Mays in August of 1920. "Big Ed" Delahanty, a Hall-of-Famer, fell drunk off the International Bridge at Niagara Falls in 1903. Cory Lidle, Thurman Munson, Nestor Chavez, Ken Hubbs and the great…
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Our property adjoins the old West Bradford cemetery. The two- or three-acre plot of ground is the most visible remnant of the dairy, sheep and apple community of West Bradford, which was hacked out of the steep slopes above the Connecticut river in the first part of the nineteenth century, peaked before the Civil War,…
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The Updike-athon continues Since my last report, I've read Museums and Women, Bech is Back, In the Beauty of the Lilies, Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest. The good news: Updike is fluent, a masterful stylist, a remarkable story-teller, a distinguished craftsman. He's original, entertaining, bold, inventive. The section of Beauty…
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Is it my imagination, or did we mature later in those days than kids do now? These handsome juveniles are thirteen and fourteen years old. To my eyes, the girls look barely half-grown, the boys variable but distinctly unfledged. Claire R., who sent me the picture (thanks so much, Claire!!), looks womanly, but the others…
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We're packing up, getting ready to go — even though there hasn't been the slightest hint of frost. When I loaded the metal sculptures into the bed of the truck, I realized that it would be a good idea to cover them with a tarpaulin. So down I drove to Main Street and to the…
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There was this nasty kid in our class at P. S. 217, back there in the Flatbush '50s. I'm not going to name names, but if anyone is cares to look, you can tell him by his superior, know-it-all smirk in the picture of our eighth grade graduating class. For convenience, I'll call this guy K. K was not particularly…
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A creature previously unknown to me has appeared in the pond. After a few moments with the binoculars and a glance at Peterson's classic Field Guide to the Birds along with some intense internet research, I could make a positive identification. It's a double-crested cormorant, usually found at the seacoast but sometimes in rivers and lakes,…