Memory Eternal: Peter Bochow

A few years ago, responding to one of those “getting to know you” memes, I listed the ten most influential people in my life.  One of them was Peter Bochow, the man who taught me German. A few people contacted me after that.  It seems that like me, they had Googled his name, but unlike [...]

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Post-a-Day: I Protest!

“Have you ever protested for anything?” Finally, a topic I can respond to. Most of the last several have been, shall we say, “uninspiring.” In fact, in my callow youth, I did care enough about something to mount a picket line. Mind you, it didn’t do much good. We did everything by the book: Kept [...]

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Saying Yes to “No”

It’s quite a few years back that I saw, in Reader’s Digest’s “Toward More Picturesque Speech,” something that ran along these lines: “No sun, no flowers, no warmth, no leaves, no grass, no daylight — No-vember!”  Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And yet… Maybe it’s because I live on a Main Street, which [...]

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Owning Heaven

Between the annual income-tax burden, the beginning and middle of Great Lent (as opposed to the lesser fasts observed by the Orthodox Church), and the final illness of my stepfather, life has been unimaginably hectic.  I didn’t do this much running around when I had teenagers in the house. So, having gone into a decline [...]

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PostAday: All My Friends Live in a Little Box

“Could you live without the internet for a week? For a month?” This prompt reminded me of an essay I read once that began, “All my friends are in a little box.”  The essay was, of course, referring to internet friendships. Sad to say, many of my friends also live in a little box.  I’m [...]

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PostAday: The One Who Got Away

“Describe the one who got away.” He looked like Joe College of the 1950s, with his crewcut hair and nerdy glasses, and we met in the public library, when he reached for the same book I was interested in:  “The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyim.”  (I had no idea what it was about, but had read [...]

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PostAday: “Back to Our Sheep”

Which, I am reliably informed, is how Russians say, “Let’s get back to work.”  Interesting that in the USA, we say, “Back to the salt mines” — which were always a feature of Russian life. “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?  Bonus: What is the worst job you’ve [...]

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PostAday: Where Did I Put My Quill Pen??

“What’s one piece of technology you can’t live without?  (Bonus topic:  What technology do you wish would disappear from the world?)” I think I decided to respond to this one more for the bonus topic than for the original one. There are forms of technology I actually do like.  Anything that reproduces music, for instance; [...]

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PostAday: Procrastination, That’s Me

“What’s the most important thing you’re putting off?  And why haven’t you done it yet?  What do you need to make it happen?” I was brought up to believe that procrastination was right up there with idle hands, as in, “The devil makes work for idle hands to do.”  The procrastination version of this saying [...]

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PostAday: I Hope I Got This Right…

“What gives you hope? And what, if anything, makes you question hope?” There was more to this:  ”And what makes you question your questions of hope? And…” but it strikes me as too silly to be addressed. Hope is either completely abstract, or completely personal; it strikes too close to the heart to be neutral. In [...]

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