Author Archives: kihm
Guano
Few things make me happier than the arrival of Architectural Digest, and the December 2013 issue more than fulfilled my eager expectations. Savor with me this morsel from a feature on a Paris apartment (“A Backward Glance” by Mitchell Owens): “And what about the hefty red-marble pedestals holding aloft two Japanese covered jars? They came […]
For a More Perfect Union
I am past weary with those who venerate the U.S. Constitution without reading it. Written and adopted in 1787, the document was intended, among other things, to form a more perfect union, establish justice, promote the general welfare and secure for us “the blessings of liberty.” But tucked into the fine print was Article I, […]
The Gdańsk Post Office, 1939
On September 1, 1939, the morning the German army invaded Poland, the postal workers at the Polish post office in Gdańsk delivered more than mail. There was a lot of history behind the 1939 invasion of Poland, and specifically the invasion of Gdańsk. The borders of Poland had been redrawn many times since its birth […]
Hazel
In the wake of Colorado’s “Biblical flooding” and the typhoon that swept through Kyoto, I am reminded of my first hurricane, in October of 1954. I was seven years old. We lived in Buffalo, N.Y., not exactly a coastal area, but Hurricane Hazel defied history and logic. She first killed 1,000 people in Haiti, then […]
Sharia Law
The other day when Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives slipped anti-abortion provisions into legislation forbidding Sharia law, I asked myself, “In the first place, why are these people so upset about Sharia law?” So I did a little digging, and the reasons became clear: Under Sharia law, charity is obligatory, as is […]
Poker
Poker is in my blood, but so is losing, so I won’t be turning pro. My parents played poker every week, in spite of being Baptists. In my father’s case, the Baptist prohibition against gambling was one of many “thou shalt nots” that he honored in the breach rather than in the observance, but you […]
Left Behind
Some childhood memories just won’t go away. This is one I can’t forget: My brother had his first car at 15, and when he was old enough to drive, he had his second, a Chevy Bel Air, blue and white. He drove to school, out on dates, and on Sundays he drove his car to […]
The Schwabl
Many, many years ago, in the early 1960s, I dated a young woman whose older brother was something of a legend. While a student at a college that shall remain nameless (RPI), a member of an anonymous (Delta Tau Delta) campus fraternity, he was awakened one Saturday morning by a model airplane enthusiast flying his […]
Maud Allan
I can’t help but think that Maud Allan would have been better off with a few cast changes in the play that was her life. Born Beulah Maude Durrant in Toronto in 1873, she spent her childhood in San Francisco before traveling to Germany at age 22 to study piano. While she was away, her […]
Patience
It was the summer of 1963. I was 15 years old, a Boy Scout, just in from a week on the trail at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. We had a day to kill in Tent City, the base camp, before the bus took us back to Buffalo, N.Y. I was drinking a […]
Faithful Readers 