I say that the only reason I write is to help someone else avoid the mistakes I’ve made. Yeah, I am a complete altruist. I have virtually no ego. Yeah, right. OK, I admit, like every non-fiction writer I think I have something of value to communicate and like every person who shares his or […]
“I Used to Be Stupid” I stole this subtitle from Joe Hagy, of the “Cranky Old Man” blog. It’s the title of Joe’s second book, but it also perfectly describes my writing style. I describe how completely clueless I was at various stages of my life. I made a lot of mistakes. My first book […]
Sipping coffee long ago “Elixir of the gods!” exclaimed William. “My sire would cringe to hear one so name this drink, young Starke. A drink he only e’er referred to as that “foul Arab mud.’” “And yet you dost drain your cup unto the dregs, Weston,” laughed young William Starke. After the Great Fire, coffee […]
“She asks me whyI’m just a hairy guyI’m hairy noon and nightHair that’s a frightI’m hairy high and lowDon’t ask me why Don’t Know!” Flat tops and DAs I’m approaching my sixtieth high school reunion. Yikes! I pulled out my Class of 1965 yearbook, thinking “this is not, in any way, a good idea.” My […]
I started writing to share what I had learned. My first pieces in the early 1990s recorded the stories told to me by ordinary people, Mico a salt-of-the-earth guy who cut my hair, Ed, a retried train engineer, shining shoes in a hotel, Sam, a cigar-smoking booking agent. Then I began to write provocative pieces […]
I recently lost the small bone-handled pocketknife pictured above. The last time I remember seeing it was opening the Chewy box for Pip, our ancient, blind, diabetic, Black Lab for whom we are acting as seeing-eye humans and hospice-care-workers. Don’t feel too sorry for Pip. In my next life I want to come back in […]
Is consulting having a bad year? I used to diagnose consulting industry economics by the number of consultants who called me asking “Can I pick your brain?” Despite the unpleasantness of that visual, I usually took the call. These consultants hadn’t been promoted and were being encouraged to “get on with the value-added part of […]
A comprehensive sourcebook for ensuring that Earth has water to support human life Climate change is scary. The enormity of the environmental problems we face can be overwhelming. What should we do? Where should we begin? Dr. Kathleen Luske Brooke is a researcher, a writer and activist who is in the process of a huge […]
“Are you OK?” “Huh?” “I mean you’re not quite here.” “Oh, sorry. I think I’m just stunned.” This was the conversation my wife and I had during a late breakfast yesterday. Lately, we have a quiet little life. I write; she does genealogy research. We stay in our respective offices, meet for meals and after-dinner […]
I’m a wiseacre seeking to become a wise man. I’m giving myself another twenty-two years and five months for this transformation. I wasn’t wise at twenty-one, or forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy-five, maybe there’s hope for me as a centenarian? If I last that long? And can remember anything? Yeah, I know, probably not. In […]
