OK. Cath and I did a thing. We are in California and bought a camper van. It has been a lifelong dream, and we just pulled the trigger. Over the next couple of weeks, we will drive it 3,000 miles back to Virginia, hopefully the first of many adventures with it.
Continue reading “We Did a Thing”
Having recently revisited Jefferson Airplane and their brilliant “White Rabbit” in a blog about Woodstock, I decided to reread “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. I’m not sure I’d read it since childhood. How close are White Rabbit and Wonderland to each other? Go ask Alice, I think she knows.
Continue reading “Go Ask Alice”
Recently, my wife, Cathy, and her sister Bonnie spent three weeks touring the wilderness and National Parks in Wyoming and Montana in a camper van. I’ll talk a little about that. What I really want to talk about is the people who stole their firewood at a couple of campgrounds.
Continue reading “Stealing Firewood”
Fifty-six years ago, from August 15-18, 1969, a three day festival celebrating Peace and Music took place at Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. My friend Chuck, all of 19 at the time, drove there with three buddies, and experienced sex, drugs, and great Rock & Roll music at what came to be known as Woodstock.
Continue reading “Woodstock”
We West Point Whiskey Warriors gave it our best shot on the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. By the numbers, there were fourteen of us ‘78ers, along with eight wives, from twelve states. We sampled at nine distilleries in four days, and had one helluva good time. Numbers of course don’t capture everything, or for that matter, much of anything.
Continue reading “Whiskey Warriors”
This write-up is from my friend, Clark Hall (no relation), a Vietnam Veteran. While the words are his, the lessons are for all of us —
60 years ago, on August 3, 1965, an “incident of war” occurred that foreshadowed the human, political and military disaster underscoring the lunacy of the Vietnam War.
Continue reading “Cam Ne”
Although the sky was robin egg blue, it was more a Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” day. It was too beautiful to be driving to a hospital, but that was my destination. It was a Sunday morning, with lite Sunday morning traffic. I was making my way from the Northern Neck to the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia
Continue reading “The Drive (Sunday Morning Coming Down)”
I had started cooking dinner when we received the text. Our good friend badly fractured her wrist in a horse-riding accident. This was on top of unfortunate health related news she received the day before. Cath and I had two immediate reactions: sadness for our friend, and a mutual decision to substitute mashed potatoes for the broccoli we were planning to serve with dinner.
Continue reading “Life is too Short to Eat Broccoli”
Happy 4th of July! May we all celebrate the birth of America 249 years ago. Cookouts, fireworks, maybe a parade. Gatherings of friends and family. Enjoy the day and give thanks for the Declaration of Independence and the men who signed it with a pledge of their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor.
Continue reading “Independence Day, 2025”
Dad passed away fifteen years ago on June 25th, 2010. I think of him often and smile at our times together, and the stories he told of his life. I am eternally grateful for the gifts he passed on to me. I could also cry, thinking of the questions I never asked him, and never thought to ask while he was alive.
Continue reading “Dad”
