John said it well, “When they tortured and scared you for 20 odd years, then they expect you to pick a career when you can’t really function you’re so full of fear.” -John Lennon, Working Class Hero 1970 In my childhood, the coming-of-age group was the baby boomers.  Their parents had come through the Great… Continue reading

 There is a tide in daily life that cannot be seen.  It is that subliminal pull that defies logic because of its primal power.  How can everyone not see its overwhelming strength?  It burns through me, starting inside, then pours into the space outside of me like light flooding the void of darkness. Waves push… Continue reading

 I was walking down the road.  I was small and everything around me was built to have me see it in one way only.  I could see it in my house, I could see it on TV.  It was on the radio in the news and in songs.  I was there and it was who… Continue reading

 Nights on a sleepless train, passing through places familiar and those unfamiliar as well. As we speed through the night I think I may be, but I am never really sure that I am me. How superficial is the normal life? How important is life that is not normal? Am I contemplating things past, present,… Continue reading

 When I shared the previous post “I don’t even know her name”  with my wife, who was present during the story, she told me that she did not see it that way. She said that she saw a strong woman who aptly raised a strong family herself and was remembering the finest moments of that… Continue reading

A couple entered the large main room at the Hartness House.  Behind them, a woman who had to be close to 90 was in tow. She was small and frail-looking, she said nothing as we spoke with the man and woman with her.  We had just taken a couple of photos of us with our… Continue reading

 In the fall of 2018, Noah and I turned onto the paved road on his way to school.  The resonance of the Yo La Tengo song, Big Day Coming was building up over the speakers in the truck.  It begins with a harmonic resonation that like a turbine grows louder.  As the lyrics join, they… Continue reading

 An old friend named Joel stopped in last week. I did not think that I would be seeing him any time soon and honestly, perhaps not at all. But, he is here and it has been nice catching up with him and his friends. Joel is not a real person, but a favorite in contemporary… Continue reading

I don’t know if I will ever understand the perspective of parenthood.  I was listening to an aircheck of WCFL Chicago, from October 30, 1975, this morning.  If you are unfamiliar with what an aircheck is, it is a tape recording of a radio station from the past. Some of us in past decades loved… Continue reading

 Saturday Night is a conceptual place that takes on the identity of an unlimited amount of worlds.  I hear the words and I am first transported to 1975. The song Another Saturday Night was released by Cat Stevens.  He did not write it, it was originally written and released by Sam Cooke in February 1963… Continue reading