“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
For audio version click here I attended a retirement dinner Wednesday night for three teachers with whom I had worked for more than 30 years. A good sized crowd of the living celebrated their many achievements, and the dead, by name, and by the collective power of memory, appeared, and then left with me, and with many others as well I suspect. This is Joe. At the end of the evening, I took the long […]
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For audio version click here Anthony*, a retired New York City police officer and detective, drives smoothly along the back roads, both hands on the wheel, all the time telling me stories of the city. He lives in the country now, but still visits his old neighborhood in the West 140’s where his grandfather began to build a little empire of restaurants 60 years ago. He tells me that his grandfather kept his distance, but […]
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For audio version click here I have seen a scarlet tanager only once, four or five years ago at an overgrown lima bean farm in southern New Jersey. A cloudy day, his red stood out even more boldly at the top of a tall tree two hundred yards away. Cardinals are low flyers and nesters. Tanagers are canopy birds. No other bird around here has such a color. When I trained my binoculars on him, […]
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For audio version click here A 12 year old could throw a stone across the Seine at Notre Dame Cathedral, but whether wide or narrow, it is the heart of Paris, and the bridges that cross it the best places to take in that muted northern-yellow Paris light that so complements the color of the apartment buildings. This early in the morning, under a hazy gray blue cloud cover, the city achieves a pale luminosity. […]
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