Father’s Day 2019: a Story of My Father
Some personal reflections on my father and a stroke he suffered in June 1994 when I was launching a new company and expecting my first son in a few weeks. […]
What a Mixmaster our dreams are for our memories
I take a fair amount of inspiration from dreams, which I believe are a way for the mind to reprocess memories into new configurations, the same way that a mixmaster can beat eggs or potatoes into a smooth consistency. I think dreams are a way of reprocessing experiences and distilling [...]
Courtesy Keeps The Spirit Of Christmas Alive
Christmas afternoon finds me reading “Courtesy.” It’s an essay by Ian MacLaren (pen name for Scottish author and theologian John Watson) that offers a recipe for keeping the spirit of Christmas alive in daily life. Here are some excerpts I found useful, the last finds me still clearly in the [...]
No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends
No man is a failure who has friends. Clarence’s parting observation to George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” is good advice for all of us on Christmas Eve. Watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” has become a Christmas tradition in our family in recent years: it’s one of the few black and [...]
Maturing
The process of maturing from boy to man, from a son to father to grandfather, moves forward imperceptibly on a day to day basis but inexorably year by year. […]
Kin Hubbard on a Family Reunion at Christmas
The following is excerpted from the December section of Abe Martin’s Almanack for 1908 by Kin Hubbard. Hubbard tells a story of a family reunion at Christmas–that must be at least partly autobiographical–from the point of view of a young man who has been estranged from his family returning home [...]
Through The Rude Wind’s Wild Lament And The Bitter Weather
We have a week left in 2013. This is a short post to collect some odds and ends on the day after Christmas, also known as Feast of St. Stephen or Boxing Day depending upon where you are reading this. […]
Deprecating Facebook Part Two
I am deprecating my use of Facebook except for a small group of friends and family. On-line communities do not enable person to person trust to scale. […]