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Posts from the ‘Personal’ Category

Jul 6

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From Athens to Philadelphia: The Return

We were supposed to get home on July 3, but we didn’t finally get here until yesterday because our flight was cancelled in Philadelphia.  I grew up in Philadelphia, and still have family there, so this wasn’t all bad.  We were able to push our flight back one more day so we could spend July Fourth with my brother, his wife and her family.  They live north of the city in farm country so it was nice to get out of the concrete jungle and see some grass after the unbearable heat of Athens.  They have neighbors who own a dairy farm who set off their own quite impressive firework show.  It wasn’t quite the Northern Liberty drug dealers show that I saw a couple years ago from a friend’s roof, but it was good.

It seems fitting that we were stuck in Philadelphia on our way back from Athens.   Read more

Jun 28

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A Cat Story

Let me start this saga by saying I am not a cat person.  Oh, we had cats when we were growing up.  But those are sad stories, like most cat stories.   Read more

Apr 22

The Trott Line

A trot line is a fishing line that is set up across an span of water with a staging area every few feet from which you drop a line.  On the end of each staging line is a hook that you tie your bait to during the day, let the sun go down, and come back in the morning to see what’s been caught.  Some call it lazy.

I like this idea of fishing, of just letting the fish come to you when they’re ready.  Lazy?  Maybe, but it takes patience, and too, attentiveness.  There’s something  about the way the trot line gathers the things of the water without prejudice: your trot line could catch old rope, plastic bags and snakes as likely as fish.  Thinking is kind of like this: ideas come by and get caught on your staging.  Some of them are worth keeping, some of them you throw back, some of them are a cause for celebration, some of them you’d rather never have seen, some of them don’t mean that much to you, but someone else is glad you caught it.  This blog is my trot line.   Read more

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