It isn’t my style to get thrown out of business establishments for unruly behavior, but sometimes, life takes an odd turn. My first visit to Grand Canyon, a raft trip on the Colorado River, was in May 1994. One of my trip mates, Chris, lived in Atlanta, too — coincidentally about five miles from my [...]
Archive for April, 2009
The Cleveland Mafia
Posted in Trip Reports, tagged Boating, Outdoors, The South, Travel on April 30, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Mrs. Kreuger’s House
Posted in Notable Prose and Poetry, tagged Miscellaneous, People, Quotes on April 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From an old episode of “Lake Wobegone Days,” as related by Garrison Keilor… ————— Once, a bat got loose in Mrs. Kreuger’s house and swooped from room to room and scared her silly. She lay on the floor, then crawled to the phone and called the police to get Gary and Leroy to come and [...]
Arimichi Spills the Beans
Posted in Recollections, Personal, tagged Family, Memories, Military, Parenting on April 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A couple of weeks ago, my granddaughter Maddie, the four-year-old, wanted to try out her roller skates. This surprised her mom. “You’ve only tried them once or twice since we gave them to you last Christmas,” Leslie remarked. Maddie pointed out that actually, Santa Claus gave her those skates, not Mom and Dad. “Oops, I [...]
The Canyon Wren
Posted in Pets and Other Fauna, tagged Animals, Nature, Outdoors on April 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Until I started exploring the western U.S. back in the 1990s, I’d never heard of, or heard the song of, a canyon wren. The little guys don’t live back East. Too bad. From the first time I heard one, I was smitten. The canyon wren is a tiny thing, about five inches long, with a [...]
A Good Mare and Dogs
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Miscellaneous, Movies, Opinion on April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The most fun I ever had watching a movie was in college, winter quarter 1963, at the Alps Theater. The movie was Tom Jones. Tom Jones was loaded with excellent British actors in top form, and it won four Academy Awards, including best picture. It was the perfect film for an auditorium full of college [...]
The King of Beasts
Posted in Trip Reports, tagged Boating, Grand Canyon, Memories, Outdoors on April 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been to Grand Canyon 19 times. Four of those times were for raft trips down the Colorado River. On three of the four, I had the incomparable experience of running Lava Falls Rapid. Lava Falls is the biggest rapid on a river of many big rapids. It is the climax, the exclamation point. After [...]
Quotes o’ the Day
Posted in Regular Features, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous, Quotes on April 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Theoretical insights flourish best when the thinker is apparently wasting time. – J. Robert Oppenheimer ## The towels were so thick there, I could hardly close my suitcase. – Yogi Berra ## Sure, I look like a white man. But my heart is as black as anyone’s here. – Governor George Wallace ## Hair and [...]
A Piece of Cheese
Posted in Notable Prose and Poetry, tagged Fiction, Literature, Quotes on April 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Ben Gunn, the shipwrecked sailor in “Treasure Island,” greeted his rescuer Jim Hawkins thusly: ————— Marooned three years agone, and lived on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. But mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn’t happen to have [...]
Bad Touch
Posted in Recollections, Personal, tagged Family, Memories, Travel on April 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When we lived in Europe in the 1950s, my family took every opportunity to travel and sightsee. We were forever packing up to go somewhere. We went to Brussels, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Paris, and everywhere in between. We saw Barcelona and the Costa Brava in Spain. We explored most of Western Germany. We drove through Switzerland [...]
Refranes Mexicanos
Posted in Edutainment, tagged Life, Musings, Quotes on April 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I can’t vouch for the grammatical accuracy of the Spanish here, but the epigrams speak for themselves. ——————— Ganar un pleito es adquirir un pollo y perder una vaca. To win an argument is to gain a chicken and lose a cow. El mejor torero es el de la barrera. The best bullfighter is the [...]
