What Would Thoreau Say?

Recently I began to read more about the American Civil War.   Here in Virginia, where I live, that war is impossible to escape some 150 years after its end.   The conflict-called the ‘war of northern aggression’ by some of my neighbors, the ‘treasonous rebellion’ by those I grew up with in the north-really lives on in the streets and towns of this state that was at the heart of the conflict and that saw more action than any other state. One of the books that has entered my pantheon of the best American history books ever written is Jay Winik’s April 1865 .   Here is an entire book about a single month where more important stuff happened than perhaps any other short period in our history.   The war ended, Lincoln was assassinated, reconstruction began…on and on all of these important events happened or began all in this one month. No part of this book struck me more powerfully though, than his description of the surrender of the Army of Virginia by General R...

Three hours before game time Clemente Bridge leading to PNC Park is packed with people, most of whom are probably at their first game of the year, drinking Bud Light.   Bud Light.   Like having sex in a boat-f-n’ near water.   How do people drink that stuff?   I give the Pirates credit for trying to create a Wrigley-ville type atmosphere with bands playing in the closed streets.   They aren’t there yet but there are a few bars and lots going on before the game most of which we wouldn’t even sniff at in Wrigley Field, like people dressed as pirates with eye patches, three cornered hats and peg legs.   If these guys showed up in Wrigley-ville they would probably be found somewhere in the middle of Lake Michigan by the third inning.   Though my Cubs have tried a mascot or two, and they have a stupid bear named Clark (for Clark and Addison the intersecting streets for Wrigley Field) they realize we will probably behead him if he shows up in public so...

HERE'S AN OP-ED I WROTE FOR OUR LOCAL PAPER AFTER YOGI BERRA DIED.... When you grew up in New York in the 50’s and 60’s you rooted for one of the major league teams at the time in that area:   the Giants, the Dodgers or the Yankees.   There was no such thing as switching loyalties and God forbid you should even whisper that you might have sympathy for one of the other two.   To do so was to cause a firestorm of derision from your friends.   This, in NY at that time, was absolute treason. When you greeted new kids you met on the playground, someone perhaps who had moved into the neighborhood, you did so with only one question:   “Giants, Dodgers, Yankees?”   The words clearly a question of importance and the answer all you had to hear to determine if the new friend was indeed to be a friend or foe.  And if the poor kid happened to come from Boston or St. Louis and had the guts to say he still rooted for the Red Sox or Cardinals, it might take t...

As an old jock I have a different calendar than the rest of the world.  Mine is predicated on what sports are being played at what time. Fall is nice with college football... I like summer when the pennant races heat up... But nothing beats right now when Major League Baseball is in full swing and the NCAA baseball and softball regionals and championships are upon us.  MLB for me is simply painful.  The Cubs have the worst record in baseball, again.  Painful.  But with the Major League TV package (see past blog about watching Derek Jeter) I get to watch other games and that's fun.  TV is full of games too.  And with the internet package I can even watch the games with the other Team's announcing crew so I don't have to listen to the Cubs broadcaster, Len Kasper, who talks more about rock music and the other games going on than ours.  (I'm about to begin a one person petition campaign to get that guy farmed out to the Boise Hawks he mak...

Some years ago I was on an airplane coming back from Barcelona where my girlfriend at the time and I had spent about ten days in the driving rain.  She had a meeting so I was going to have lots of time to explore a beautiful city (especially the artist I had always been fascinated with, Gaudi') and Citicorp was going to pay for everything... then the monsoons came and it rained literally the entire time we were there.  Gaudi' and I got really, really wet. But anyway, on that plane I was reading and finishing the best book I ever read, David McCullough's  biography of John Adams.  McCullough has the ability to write history as a novel and the entire book had me riveted.  I remember being quite sad it was ending. The fact that I loved this book was strange, really, since Adams became quite the enemy of my hero Thomas Jefferson.  Yet what I loved about the book was how McCullough so beautifully explained the power of the early American world and the m...

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 ...