Author Archives: kihm
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 […]
My Old New Glasses
November 5, 2005 I’ve never been able to throw them away, the wire-rim glasses I bought in San Angelo, Texas, in 1969. I could never look at them without a pang, a rush of fondness, a smile for an old friend. So they have followed me for 36 years, through a succession of dresser drawers […]
My 30th Anniversary
April 13, 2002 Today is my 30th anniversary. Thirty years ago today, on a cloudy morning not unlike this one, I was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force. It was, and remains, the most glorious day of my life. My freedom came six months early, due to a Pentagon budget cut and a […]
Haircuts
Haircuts were frequent in the Air Force, and at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, there were two Mexican barbers who saw to our neatness and military bearing. While cutting, they chatted in Spanish. At this point in my military career, I had purchased new silver wire-rimmed glasses from a friendly optician in […]
The Bars of Solvay
(From the Syracuse New Times, October 31, 1976) Solvay sits close by Syracuse like a small European city-state. Drawing its tradition from Florence and Monaco, this gem-like principality offers the Syracuse drinker a new world of experience just minutes from our drab, cloud-covered city. The stacks of Allied Chemical rise over Solvay like tall, proud […]
Faithful Readers 