Monthly Archives: May 2012
Friends and Mail Boxes
Given my passion for the post office, it’s no surprise that I love mail boxes as well. I especially love pictures of mail boxes and friends. The one that started it all, a photo of artist Theo Tilton next to a giant mail box in Louisiana. Roland Sweet notes, “In the fall of 1986, Theo […]
Post Office Postcards
Just look at it. It makes no sense. What in blazes is a medieval castle doing in San Antonio, Texas? And yet there it is, one of my favorite post offices. I love the Post Office and I love postcards, so it’s natural that I love postcards of post offices — post offices that look […]
Silver Bay Postcards
:: Photographers and Publishers :: Since the earliest days of the postcard, Lake George has been well documented. The locale was scenic, unspoiled, a close and popular destination for travelers eager to get away from New York City and Albany. What follows is a short list of postcard publishers and photographers (and one artist) who […]
The Stone Tower of Silas Paine
It would be inappropriate to tell you why I was so afraid and so angry, but I was, rocking from the one emotion to the other like a boat tilting and rolling on the waves of Lake George, where I was supposed to be on vacation in July of 2004. By the third day, the […]
Uncle Lee’s Bed
It was the tallest, highest bed in the world, I think, where I spent every Christmas Eve as a boy. For the holiday, we traveled from Buffalo to Salamanca, N.Y., to the home of my grandparents on Academy Street. My brother, who was older, got to spend the night with our cousins over at their […]
The Daddy Who Could Not Talk
In 1986, my friend Cheri Bladholm, an illustrator, called with a question. A publisher wanted to see what she could do with a story. It could be any story, just not one they’d seen a hundred times before. Did I know an obscure fairy tale that hadn’t already been illustrated many times? I didn’t, but […]
Bottle Bats and Bat Bottles
Pitchers in the early 1920’s did not look forward to seeing Heinie Groh in the batter’s box. Not that the Cincinnati Red’s lead-off hitter was a big man. Standing just 5’8″ and weighing 158 pounds, the little infielder was no threat to go deep. Nor did they dread his eagle eye, peppery disposition or peculiar […]
Camp Becket
July 21, 2006 When I was a boy, my parents were avid square dancers, members of The Promenaders in Kenmore, N.Y. They owned square dance finery. Mom had skirts with multiple petticoats and Dad had silver points on his collars, and bolo ties, and pearly buttons on Western shirts. They danced on the weekend and […]
Black Patent Malt and the Evolution of Porter
This article first appeared in the Summer 1987 issue of Zymurgy magazine. * * * Because beer is a living thing, made from living ingredients by changing people in a changing world, it evolves. Often the explanation is “a change in public taste,” but that is always an inadequate answer. The real reasons for evolution […]
Hops: A Brief History
This article first appeared in a special issue of Zymurgy, 1990. * * * The hop. Without it, where would we be? Perhaps sipping a beer with “just a kiss of the gruit,” an herbal mix popular before the hop’s ascendancy. Gruit blended herbs and spices like bog myrtle, yarrow, St. John’s wort, coriander, rosemary […]
Faithful Readers 