Monthly Archives: May 2012
Jesus and Levi
March 5, 1998 What a month it has been. Jesus Christ appeared on the bus one morning, getting on at the hospital, speaking to us even before the bus doors opened and continually once he was on board. He is holding up remarkably well, appearing in this incarnation as a 60-ish male with short gray/white […]
The Bard of Beer Visits
October 1996 Being out with Michael Jackson is like being out with Santa Claus — everywhere, people are glad to see you. It is impossible to overstate Jackson’s influence on the worlds of beer and whiskey. He wrote the book, several of them in fact, and is the single best known beer writer on the […]
Iridium from the Jetty
October 1999 John Milner and I met in high school, in English class, in 1962. I was, in John’s words, “a disarranged teenager,” and John was the teacher, and more. He was someone who listened, encouraged us to read and write, gave us credit for our imagination but gently imposed some discipline. I kept in […]
The Icing on the Lake
February 28, 2003 The last two evenings, while walking home from work, I have been taking a left turn just past the jetty and walking out onto the ice over the lake. We have had a very cold winter in Skaneateles, and the ice is solid out into the deep water, out past the Country […]
Holiday Dinners
December 14, 2005 There is perhaps nothing so special as a holiday dinner where a family can gather and create memories that last a lifetime. All my best holiday dinner memories, however, were created by other people’s families. On his first leave from the Air Force, in December of 1968, one of my fellow students […]
Long Nights, Strong Beers
This article was written for Zymurgy in 1987, rewritten for the Syracuse New Times in 1996. * * * Long Nights, Strong Beers: The Holiday Beer Tradition If, as the days grow shorter and the holidays approach, you feel an urge to put a little something extra into your homebrew, you are not alone. Rather, […]
My Golf Story
January 31, 2005 My sophomore year at Syracuse University, fall semester, I signed up for Golf to fulfill my physical education requirement. The first week, we met in the gym, lined up in a long row, and practiced our swings, teeing off on imaginary golf balls. At the end of the class, our instructors took […]
Fun in Clumps
September 5, 2000 Sometimes, fun comes in clumps. A week ago Friday, Laurie and I saw the Incredible Shrinking Violinist, Hilary Hahn, at the high school. Hilary herself did not shrink. She shrank the pianist, a very large man in a white dinner jacket. He hit the first note as an internationally renowned concert pianist, […]
Fruit Beers
This article appeared in the Syracuse New Times, August 20-27, 1997. * * * Imagine for a moment that Adam had shown some backbone. That when Eve advanced and held out the apple, Adam said, “Thank you, but no.” Might not Eve have huddled once more with the serpent and returned saying, “Adam, how about […]
Fried Food
February 25, 2001 Laurie was returning from Virginia and coming home from the airport we decided that neither of us wanted to cook. This was a task best left to the hands of professionals, and we chose the Hilltop. The Hilltop is a part of a compound just outside the Village, just past the tasteful […]
Faithful Readers 