Carmen saw the intruder first. Using her big-girl bark, she alerted me to the danger. I called her off and she came to me. Damn. There lay a copperhead on the edge of the garage concrete, not more than eight feet from where a copperhead bit me in 2012.
Continue reading “Copperhead Redux”
If still alive, my buddy Tim would turn 71 on August 27th. I was recently thinking about Tim, while reminiscing about our friend Howard’s 10th birthday party in 1965. I still laugh at the story of an usher almost kicking us out of the Roxy Theatre when Tim shouted out, “LOOK AT THAT SPITFIRE!” in the middle of the movie, “Von Ryan’s Express.”
Continue reading “Tim and the Spitfire”
My military career was almost over before it began. When I was a First Lieutenant in Germany, our Battalion deployed to Hohenfels for ten days of training. On the last day, it appeared that Spec 4 Moses Saxon III lost his M16, a career killer for the entire chain of command, starting with me.
Continue reading “Accountability”
Over the years, Mom did many wonderful things for me, but one gesture stands out. Whenever Cath and I returned home to Ottawa from wherever we were living, we were welcomed home with unconditional love and my favorite meal ready for our first supper: potato salad and baked ham.
Continue reading “The Homecoming Meal”
As our country’s 250th anniversary approaches, my mind keeps going back to our 200th anniversary in 1976. What would the current Max say to the 21 year old West Point Cadet who was in DC for July 4th that year? As Bob Dylan sang, “I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.”
Continue reading “250 Years”
The summer Solstice is today, June 21st. Actually, it was at 4:24AM this morning. Here in the DC area, this longest day of the year stretches almost fifteen hours between sunrise and sunset. While it marks the official start of summer, I always feel a touch of sadness as well. A wistful emotion that is silly, and yet…
Continue reading “Summer Solstice”
Baseball has started, which made me think about dad. How old was I when we first played catch? When he taught me to throw and catch a baseball? I know I was young. I also thought about some of the other life lessons that were a part of that process.
Continue reading “Playing Catch”
At Rohan Farm, we have five main pastures or paddocks for the horses. In Cathy’s and my shorthand, we call them: The Back Field, The Jenny Craig, The Barn Paddock, The Field Near the House, and The Front Field. For us, each area has its own particular use.
Continue reading “Pastures and Paddocks”
On March 9th of last week, Adam Ray would have turned 40. Adam was the son of my West Point classmate Jim and his wife Donna. He was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on February 9th, 2010, one month shy of his 24th birthday. The administration’s cavalier attitude about the current war with Iran is raising old ghosts from past conflicts.
Continue reading “Adam”
In the summer of ‘82 while stationed in Germany, we drove to what was then Yugoslavia* for a vacation. Along the way, we stopped for lunch in Venice. That is what you do when you are young and in love. Not for the night. Not for a couple of days. Just lunch, because, why the hell not?
Continue reading “A 1980s Selfie in Venice”
Live Life Exuberantly 