Like all of us, upon occasion I wake up with the thought of “What is the greatest commandment, anyhow?” And so we bring it up at breakfast pretending like we really know and are just trying to generate some fun table talk but our teenage kids see right through us and eyes are rolled and … Read More
The Kingdom of Summer
Our Kingdom Come. Not the one of other worlds. But right here. Now. In the slant of sun off June water. We are princes, princesses, kings and queens. Today we are divine. World without End. Amen. [music_store_product id=”557″] Late afternoon Twenty-first of June Light in the trees, reflected from the water A lake, a breeze, … Read More
Flying Down to Rio
When Fred Astaire died on June 22, 1987, Ginger Rogers was living alone on her Rogue River ranch in Oregon. Their last movie was almost forty years before (“The Barkleys of Broadway“) and while Fred and Ginger had parted amicably and remained friends, their iconic onscreen romance of the 1930’s was in the distant past. … Read More
Eisenhower On the Beach
In 1964, Dwight Eisenhower returned to Normandy. It had been twenty years since D-Day and was the only time he returned to the beaches where so many died and began the final chapter in the Second World War. Words could never capture what went on there and what Eisenhower must have been feeling. In this … Read More
When I Saw Her Standing….
What if the lyric ended like that? No “there” was there (to paraphrase Gertrude Stein’s take on Oakland). Even the first time we heard that song we knew “there” was coming and so we were free to revel in the tension of “standing”. We would be led home in due time. That’s the beauty of a … Read More
To Tune a Guitar
The way to tune a guitar: hold it loose and easily Every flat or sharp tells you where it needs to be Strings should sing like stars, serenade us like the moon and that’s the way a guitar is tuned To listen to a song: come inside, be right here So soon we will … Read More
Arlington
I was in the high school marching band back in Iowa and every Memorial Day we would march a few miles to a cemetery that lay among cornfields, lonesome willows and elms. The town and the farmers would come out and listen to us play Sousa marches that always seemed too rousing for the occasion. … Read More
Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli.
A rat! I had heard my whole life to insulate myself from them, that they are everywhere and so to remain on guard. A RAT!! In my own home! My home! Under the same roof as my wife and family. Where I ate and slept (though uneasily). There had been hints of course. Evidence willfully … Read More