It was about thirty years ago that I threw in the towel. After a little more than three decades of roughing it without central air conditioning, I broke down.
I have to admit. There’s something sweet about swimming in the hot muggy midsummer air. Like the reassuring aroma from your mother’s kitchen, you can smell it. Like the snuggling comfort of your favorite blanket, you can feel it. Like the glittering neon signs of the exciting night, you can see it in the twinkling above.
Yes. All the radiating vapor creates waves of transparent turbulence, only visible through Continue Reading “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the (Summer) Evening”
The Road All Runners Run
You shouldn’t, as the saying goes, allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. For all our imperfections, we all possess some ounce of good.
Like hating the sin and loving the sinner, it is that ounce of good that we should glorify, amplify, and dignify. It’s what gives us all hope in a world marred by inadequacy and faultiness.
So it was with A.E. Housman, the troubled poet of the 19th Century. If you’re on your toes, you may have caught that the title of this piece alludes to a line in Housman’s greatest work: “To an Athlete Dying Young.”
While Housman’s works reflect the tragic demons that tormented him, this poignant poem still contains that ounce of good that makes it memorable.
A behavioral economist might call it “reframing.” Us regular folk simply say it’s looking at Continue Reading “The Road All Runners Run”