What Would Thoreau Say?

I've decided there are two kinds of intelligence (probably way more, but I'm not intelligent enough to know more):  book intelligence and street intelligence.  I was one of those guys that had street intelligence.  And my street intelligence was so intelligent I hung out with all the book intelligent kids so everyone thought I was book intelligent too. You following me? I did the same thing in sports.   Two of my best friends in high school were captains of the football team.  And  my girlfriend was captain of the cheerleaders.  So I was always seen, years later, as one of the football stars at Ossining High School.. Which means I was street intelligent in football too, cause I sucked at football.  Not so-so;  not pretty good;   sucked.  Twenty four karat sucked. Now basketball and baseball?  I could hold my own there.  But football? Arm-grabber extraordinaire... stay as far away from getting my ass ...

"Your first task is to find the place where your soul is at home" Marsalis Ficino-15th century philosopher (I know you have all his albums)  You're tired, I'm sure, of hearing me write about my home, The Hermitage (TH).  It's hard to explain why it's so important to me, but one way to think about it is I've never felt so attached to a building or community as I have to this small former slave cottage in the historic district of one of Virginia's oldest little towns. I've always needed my places to be me.  I once said TH was decorated in 'early American Aschermann.' What I meant by that was each room was full of my stuff, collected over the ages, meaning 65 years. It has always been important to me to be comfortable in my surroundings. I used to take as much time decorating my office as any apartment I ever had.  Somehow I worked better when I was somewhere that made me comfortable and happy. As you enter you get lots of history ...

On my refrigerator at The Hermitage I have a million magnets.  I know, weird a 65 year old guy has refrigerator magnets but I do. I enjoy collecting them telling me where I've been and what I've done. Most of the magnets are on the top half of the refrigerator so you can actually read them.  There are a bunch of St. Francis; Jefferson; Emerson; places I've been to... nice collage of my whereabouts and interests.  (I've often thought Dave Barry or someone like him could write a fun book called "You Can Tell a Lot About a Man by His Refrigerator Magnets.") Anyway there are also a bunch of them on the bottom of the refrigerator, at what I call Max Level.  Max is my almost two year old grandson, one of the two smartest and best looking children on the planet.  Max also likes my magnets.  He moves them around, throws them across the room, often places them in the microwave, which I discover before I put my soup in there, most of the time. And when Max and ...

PART I Anyone who knows me knows I have this bromance with Thomas Jefferson.  I can't explain it really, and lord knows I've had my breakups with him.  Even sworn off him a time or two when I was feeling indignant about his hypocrisy, after the proof about Sally Hemming came to light.  Really... this is your hero I said to myself? This 'relationship' actually started while I was in college.  I went to college a full scale, 24 hour a day jock, and soon found myself organizing demonstrations against the Vietnam War (actually I remember organizing ONE demonstration against the Vietnam War.  Unfortunately my radical life has grown in my minds eye over the years...I was really just a jock who made believe he was radical). Anyway as I got political I decided I might want to learn a little bit more about this country I was screaming at and more about why I believed what I believed.  This lead me to Jefferson, of course, who had written the great document of ...

My father was 80 before he told me he loved me.   From German stock, steeped in a stoic view of emotional displays, he just didn’t say it.   Ever.   Until he got sick and I was taking care of him, traveling from Atlanta to Blue Ridge where he lived on a mountain in a log cabin.   One day, sitting there trying to figure out something else to say to keep the conversation going he just up and said, ‘I love you and your brother buddy.   Proud of you.’ He always added the proud of you part after that. I never doubted he loved me.   He just never said it until then.  Not sure if the illness and view of the 'end' made a difference. When my kids were born I don’t remember making a decision to say I love you to them regularly.   I didn’t do the ‘my father didn’t do it so I will thing,’ rather I just did it.   So did my ex-wife.   We said I love you all the time.   Still do actually.   When my kids and I text or talk we always ...

My son and I have an old fashioned father-son relationship in many ways.  None more so than through our mutual love of baseball.  We actually could be a Normal Rockwell painting if Norman Rockwell was still around to paint.  Through everything--and there have been things, of course--Kurt and I have baseball, the great conversation starter, and conflict-fixer. He is a fanatic Yankee fan.  I'm not talking  big fan, or really big fan, I'm talking fanatic.  As a child he cried when the Yankees lost a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April.  As an adult he cries when the Yankees lose a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April. I hate the Yankees, of course, because I grew up in the W O Y period in New York.  Not sure what W O Y means?  It means, We Own You, and by we I mean New York baseball, by you I mean everybody else, every other city with a baseball team.  The Giants, Dodgers and Yankees owned baseball in the 50...

For the six or seven months I have been running around northern Virginia trying to establish a soup kitchen I have had, truly, an excellent adventure.  Not only have I met some unbelievably wonderful people, but I have worshipped, preached, listened to and been part of worship services in every conceivable tradition except Zoroastrianism... that may be next. This morning, as I sat waiting for the iced in Pastor of the Methodist Church here in Leesburg, I thought about this adventure and smiled.  Here I was sitting in a traditional Protestant parlor next to a beautiful sanctuary.  It was appointed in 'early American Church' with mismatched chairs the somewhat cheesy bust of Jesus across the room from the beautiful print called A Day in Sleepy Hollow (a place I know well) and the comforting rack of Bibles next to a small library of Christian classics. I felt so at home here at Leesburg United Methodist Church though I had never worshipped here, never worshipped at any M...