This is part four of a mult-part story which begins here.
From the last episode: For me, however, it was to be a journey into truly uncharted waters, an instrument none of us had ever dreamed could exist, never mind had we ever even heard of it. The fateful turn came near the end of the [...]

Here are the first three chapters in a story I had begun last fall but never finished. Let us give thanks that many things (and people) leave us, but our stories never do. More chapters soon to come!
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It’s just a story…but then so are we.
“This is it! This is really it. And it’s all here; [...]

This morning we went to Easter services with our daughter and her family at their church in North Carolina. It’s a large suburban church, not quite mega- by today’s Osteenian standard, but still larger than what I prefer. When I’m in such a church it becomes very easy for me to surreptitiously slip my critic’s [...]

“I think if you let the match burn right down to your fingertips you get a better flame.” “Maybe your tobacco is too dry. Try adding some beer!” “Have you thought of giving up pipe smoking? Maybe you’d be more successful at something simpler, like nuclear physics.”
Our advice flowed as freely as Yuengling from a [...]

And…..I’m back! It’s been a nice vacation these past few weeks. Got caught up on other things in my life. Didn’t even read other blogs. Nice to let it go for a bit…and nice to be back.
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Wired.com reports that the original, un-remixed, unfiltered video tapes of the Apollo 11 moon landing have vanished and may [...]

After a couple of days of hard discussions about serious matters, ’tis time to lighten up a bit before the day of Thanksgiving. My friend Joel Garver provides the needed refreshment with another delightful dialog with his daughter Claire.

This is an installment in a multi-part story, which begins here.
From the last episode…Nobody in history ever set out to be a euphonium player. God knows I didn’t. No, I was an unwitting victim of that insidiously corrupt machine that is the high school band farm team system.
Everybody knows how the sports farm machine works. [...]

This is part two of a multi-part story. Find part one here.
It was the late summer of my kidhood, sophomore year of high school to be exact. Freshman year had been little more than Eighth Grade: The Sequel. No, more like Eighth Grade vs. Godzilla, with Godzilla being the monstrous complexities of the high school [...]

It’s just a story…but then so are we.
“This is it! This is really it. And it’s all here; all of it!” I turned the creamy white outer jacket over and over in my hands as if to prove to myself I was really holding it. It had been over twenty years since I’d last held [...]

For Karyn, who knows how to wait.
“It’s really something. You oughta see it.” The camp ground attendant waggled her finger at a narrow strip of green on the map. “Ain’t too many spots like it anywhere on earth.”
We had come to Washington County, Maine, the northernmost Atlantic shore in the United States, to find some [...]