Category Archives: Excursions

Excursions, Postcards

Airing on the B-side of caution ….

Woke up Friday morning to … pestilence. 

Which comes from the Latin word pestilentia, meaning unhealthy or noxious, ICYI.  

Friday’s edition came from the wildfires in Canada, triggering some of the worst air quality ever recorded in these parts. 

Keeping in mind that these parts were once described as ‘hell with the lid off’ by journalist James Parton during the Industrial Revolution, one could say that noxious air is in our DNA.

And not mean it figuratively. 

Sigh. 

I planned to take Friday afternoon off. 

Last Christmas a friend’s wife (also a friend) messaged me that she was surprising her husband with tickets for a July concert, and asked if I’d go with him. 

I was touched that she thought of me.  

Then she mentioned that the band was Motley Crud.

Sorry, I let auto-correct do its thing there.  

I was never much of a Motley Crue fan growing up, though I was good friends with many who were.

In full disclosure I have zero desire to see Motley Crue in the Year of our Lord 2026.

But I told my friend’s wife the truth — that I appreciated her husband more than I detested the present vocal stylings of Vince Neil, and that I’d be honored to share in the light of her thoughtfulness. 

I had months to gird my loins for the darkness that is attending any concert at Star Lake Amphitheater. 

Which hasn’t been called that in proly 25 years, during which the venue has undergone a number of corporate sponsorship name changes, none of which anyone in my peer group acknowledges.

Why a company would pay money to put their name on something so awful remains a mystery to me. 

The worst part of the Star Lake experience is getting in and out of the venue, which, for big draws, can mean waiting in a line of cars for several hours on either side of a show. 

It’s unequivocally awful. 

All that said, heading into this week, I was looking forward to seeing my friend Mike.  

And if I allowed myself to squint at things, the idea of being outside with a good friend on a summer Friday night, in proximity to thirst-slaking beverage, even with ‘music-adjacent’ sounds wafting in the air… holds great appeal to me. 

But I can’t do pestilence.

On Friday I unplugged from work around 1 p.m., and left the house to run a couple errands. 

Stepping outside was awful. Just walking into the post office and back to my car was misery. At the bank I tried in vain to hold my breath from the parking lot to the front door. 

When I got home I called Mike and told him the truth — that while I was genuinely looking forward to spending time with him, I was genuinely dreading the idea of standing outside for several hours in the noxious pestilence. 

By which I meant the wildfire smog … not Vince Neil’s vocal stylings. 

I had to tap out. 

It broke my heart to tell him.

But Mike totally understood, his grace triggering the best exhale I would enjoy on Friday. 

I spent my unexpectedly open afternoon chipping away at the herculean task that is cleaning out our garage. 

A few hours later I came upstairs and asked Karry if she was up for grabbing a bite. 

After a long week she didn’t want to go far or be out long. 

There aren’t many good choices close to us.

We made the cardinal error of getting in the car without first choosing a destination.

Which we will never — ever — do again.  

For reasons I cannot explain but will forever regret, we ended up in the Olive Garden parking lot. 

Before getting out of the car, Karry cautioned that we should skip the salad. 

For the record, aside from the post-meal Andy’s Candies, the bottomless salad is the only thing I enjoy at Olive Garden.

I suggested we consult the Internet. 

So for the evening’s amuse bouche, we scrolled the interwebs for a pre-dinner primer on the diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora, which appeared to be confined to a supplier of Taco Bells.

“Internet seems to think we’re OK here,” I reported. 

We exited the car and I walked to the front door breathing into the crook of my arm like a capeless Dracula. 

As we waited to be seated, a staff person approached. 

“Just so you know, we’re out of lettuce,” she said. 

Sigh.  

They sat us in a corner booth. Server took our drink order. Karry ordered an iced tea with lemon. 

“We’re out of lemons.” 

I was going to order a water with lemon. 

When life gives you lemons, it’s hard to make lemonade … when life takes away your lemons. 

While perusing the menu at Olive Garden, I may have set a world record for the longest uninterrupted exhale during a Code Maroon air-quality alert.

“Can I get you some soup?” our server asked after bringing our lemon-less beverages. 

I always go for the salad, but remembered that Olive Garden has a wedding-soup-adjacent option that’s not on the menu, and asked for that. 

Karry likes their chicken gnocchi soup. 

When our server returned with our bowls, she asked if we’d like grated cheese. 

I’m conditioned to always answer that Olive Garden question in the affirmative. 

I love cheese on my bottomless salad. 

And on my pasta. 

I said yes out of habit. 

Whereupon I discovered that God did not intend the meatballs in their wedding-soup-adjacent soup to be cheesed. 

It was just … wrong.

Karry noticed the involuntary rictus conquering my face. 

Incidentally, I think Involuntary Rictus may have been Motley Crue’s opener at Star Lake.

Not that I looked. 

“Is it OK?” 

“It’s awful,” I said, dropping my spoon in the bowl. 

I realize that it proly didn’t help that I still had diarrhea-causing parasites on my mind.

“Can I get you something else?” our server asked when she returned to take our meal orders. 

Though I was still reeling, my brain remembered how much I enjoy saying the syllables “pah-stuh-fah-ZOOL,” which splashed some metaphorical lemon-less water on my face. 

Karry went with eggplant. I went lasagna. 

I swear it only seemed like two minutes before our server returned with our entrees. 

“Careful, these are hot,” she said as she gingerly put our plates down in front of us. 

“Would you like some cheese?” 

Even in the recent wake of the fouling of my soup, there’s only one answer to that question. 

“Bring it,” said the voice in my head as I nodded.

I let her pile a small ebenezer of grated cheese atop my smokin’ hot lasagna. 

“That was fast,” Karry said after our server left and we stared at our steaming dishes. 

Startlingly so.

I noticed that the sauce had been baked dry on both our plates in their apparently impressively and insanely powerful ovens. 

All eight corners of our two dishes were a little scorched. 

Not awfully so … just a couple exits north of gooey. 

Seemed on point in a world where everything seems on blast these days.  

“At least they’re done,” Karry said.

My wife possesses a subtle gift for matching dry times with dryer humor.

Not sure she’s trying to be funny … but I appreciate it nonetheless. 

Just like I appreciate how OG does its best to create ambience with a playlist overly reliant on Dean Martin. 

In my experience there are few circumstances in life that cannot be made less grating by sprinkling some aged Rat Pack on it.

Listening to Dean-o crooning “a love as warm as wine” to his Innamorata made me appreciate sitting in a corner booth on a Friday night, across from the person whose hand I love to hold more than anyone else’s in the world.

I mean, if you squint at it, it was almost a classic scene from an Italian-adjacent restaurant.  

“We should’ve gone to Angelo’s,” my Innamorata said a couple minutes later. 

Angelo’s is a local institution, and everything you want in a family-run red-sauce cathedral. 

Only like five minutes from our house. 

Last time we went we were delightfully reminded/surprised how good it was.

Which is why we will never — ever — get in the car again without locking down a destination first. 

After bringing Karry a to-go box to re-plant her eggplant, our server asked if we wanted any dessert.

I shook my head no.

“Do you like the candies?” she asked. 

“I have been saving room for dessert,” said the voice in my head as I nodded. 

She dropped a fistful on the table along with our check. 

It was the only time all night she didn’t ask me if I’d like some cheese.

Make no mistake … I would’ve said yes.

Karry took one mint and let me have the rest. 

I’m not saying that unwrapping a fistful of Andy’s Candies and popping them in my mouth like Percocet made me forget all about diarrhea-causing parasites, rictus-triggering cheese soup, scorched corners, and the noxious pestilence awaiting us outside.

It would take more than all the lemons that Olive Garden didn’t have to make lemonade out of that. 

I’m just saying that sitting in a corner booth Friday night staving off existential crisis, I had a lot of feelings. 

And I proceeded to eat all of them. 

“You ready?” Karry asked. 

And as we got up and walked to the front door, I raised my right arm to re-crook my nose as Dean Martin was forced from the stage by the evening’s headliner … involuntary rictus. 

But if I allowed myself to squint at things, what propelled me forward as I tried in vain to hold my breath on the way back to the car was a lyric from, if not my favorite, my least-detested Motley Crue song of all time. 

I’m on my way … I’m on my way … home sweet home. 

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Time, an appreciation ….

“But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.” — David Foster Wallace, “This is Water,” Commencement Speech to Kenyon College, 2005

__

Walked into the post office yesterday morning carrying the hand-written card and extra copy of Dave Eggers’ “The Captain and the Glory” I was sending to a best-friend for his January birthday. After picking out and addressing a padded envelope, I went to take my place in line … just as a mom and her young son were walking in. 

The boy, maybe eight, was carrying a package at least half as tall as he was. Could barely peek over its top. Based on the way he was waddling, the contents had some heft. 

Carrying the lighter of our respective loads, I let ‘em go in front of me.

The post office people behind the counter were in the process of switching shifts — logging in and out and whatnot — so our patience was, um, appreciated.

Mom asked the boy if wanted to put the package down while they waited.

“I’m holding it,” he said, defiantly, standing on one leg for a sec so he could adjust his grip.

I smiled at such innocence.

Obviously, his first time waiting in line at the post office. 

Within a few seconds he was grunting.

Mom moved her suggestion from the interrogative to the imperative. 

He remained a stubborn helper. 

However, his strength timed out before the glacial logging in process. 

He put the box down. 

Looked around and noticed the floor-standing carousel of gift cards strategically placed near where the line begins. 

Asked Mom if he could have a dollar for a Roblox gift card. 

Upon which she proceeded to explain the business concept of disintermediation to her child. 

Told him it was ‘cheaper’ to just purchase credits from the site, rather than going through a middle man. 

She wasn’t merely patient. She was generous.

You could tell they spent a lot of time together for how easy their conversation was. 

Reminded me how much I enjoyed conversing with our kids when they were young. 

How much I learned from the way their minds worked. 

“Thank you for your patience, can I help the next customer?” 

The son cupped his hands back under the box. 

Hoisted. 

Waddled over to the counter and heaved it up there himself. 

“I see you brought your helper,” said the freshly logged-in counter person. 

“She can’t lift with her one arm, so I have to carry things,” said the boy, carrying the conversation as responsibly as he did the box.

Over the next couple minutes of the transaction, the adults left space for the boy’s participation.

He complemented the clerk on her gift cards, relaying how he wanted a dollar one, but his Mom said it was better to buy credits online.

“Have you ever gotten a gift card before?” the clerk asked, as she processed the postage for the box. 

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes my Mom gets me one … when I do good things.”

I inferred from the small sample size I was witnessing that he had a few credits in the bank. 

Meanwhile, a line began to form behind me, headed by a white-haired, tightly-coated, tightly-lipped older woman. 

Who was out of both stamps and patience.

As the boy elucidated on his upcoming birthday and that one time he was late for football practice, the woman’s huffs under her breath were oddly comparable to the boy’s grunts under the box.

I made smiling ‘what-are-you-going-to-do?’ eye-contact with her a couple times to give her frustration a chance to froth over. 

She returned a couple huffy head shakes and an unsmiling eye roll. 

In these moments I like to remind myself that the exact same experience is experienced differently by the folks experiencing it. 

The reasons for a tightly-coated elder’s impatience can be just as valid as a Mom’s inexhaustible well. 

The post office can sure test both. 

Sandwiched in between — both me and time standing still — I saw life flash in front of me. 

And over my shoulder. 

Before me … a Mom doing her best to teach her boy how the world’s supposed to work, while protecting him from how it actually does with her one good arm.

Behind me …  the world’s grumpy restlessness to just get on with it.

“Thanks for your patience … Can I help the next person in line?”

I waited an extra second so I could watch the boy reach for his Mom’s hand as they left the counter.

What to the world looks like an eight-year-old’s obliviousness to time … the 55-year-old knows is, in fact, the keenest appreciation.

 

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Dancing with Vonnegut ….

I’d just finished writing my last coffee shop letter of 2025 when I remembered we were out of envelopes at home. 

Opted for a surgical strike at Shop N’ Save, as I also needed shampoo (ran out a couple days ago) and ginger beer (just in case New Year’s Eve called for Moscow Mules). It’s right down the road from the coffee shop, saving me a trip to Wal-Mart or Target, which I try to avoid at all costs. 

The lot was pretty full with folks picking up New Year’s provisions. 

Walking in to the vestibule with the shopping carts, I saw the gentleman from the Salvation Army tucked in the corner keeping his kettle. Delighted me to see he had his banjo with him. I see him often when I visit, though not always with his banjo. He plays softly, not too fast. Sounds like folk music to me, possibly songs from his native country, but I’m not sure. He and his kettle used to sit inside the store where it’s warm, but awhile ago he told me they don’t like him playing inside, so when he brings his banjo he sets up shop in the vestibule … where it’s not warm. The majority of folks coming in and out pass right by him. 

The feeling I get seeing him with his banjo in the wintertime is the same one I get seeing lightning bugs in my back yard in the summertime.

Feels like a gift. 

Since I never know where to look for my stuff, I walked through the main body of the store, past the deli and the prepared foods counter. Caught a conversation just as someone said, “I’m playing at the President’s Pub Sunday … from 11 to two.” I turned to see a local musician I recognized, a jazz guitarist, talking to a person in a wheel chair.

I kept on walking for a couple seconds … before turning back around. 

Found the guitarist by the apples. 

“Excuse me,” I said. 

He looked up. 

“Did I hear you say you’re playing at the President’s Pub on Sunday?” 

Yeah, he said … confirming the time.  

“Oh, wow,” I replied. “I didn’t know they had jazz there anymore.” 

Yeah, he said. “They have music every Sunday. It’s not always jazz, though.”

It’s been years since I visited the President’s Pub on a Sunday morning. 

Remember going there the Sunday after my Dad’s funeral, listening to jazz and spilling a couple glorious tears into an Old Fashioned … and buying one for the pianist who took my request for Stardust. 

Not sure I’ve been back since.

I turned the corner past the bread just as two older ladies bumped into one another. They hadn’t seen each other in a while and fell into a big hug with their winter coats on. Asked each other if ‘everybody’ was all right and doing well. I didn’t have to know them to know how much they meant it.

As they wished each other Happy New Years, I went to walk around them, but an older guy with a shopping court was moving with purpose, so I paused to let him pass. 

“No, go ahead,” he said. 

He had right-of-way so I deferred. 

“No … please,” he insisted.

It was a small thing, but I got the sense he was looking for a place to put some New Year’s Eve kindness, so I accepted his invitation.

I didn’t even make it to the envelope aisle before I saw a different version of the scene I’d just witnessed — two other ladies who hadn’t seen each other in a while. They actually ‘whooped’ when they recognized each other. 

More winter coat hugs and Happy New Years. 

And behind me, I again heard the music of the older man who let me pass inviting another stranger to go in front of him. 

He and his cart were on a roll. 

And as I took the scenic route to find my envelopes, shampoo and ginger beer, I thought of Kurt Vonnegut. 

Who liked to tell the story of a time he went out for envelopes. 

How his wife thought him foolish. 

“Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man,” Vonnegut said in a version of the story he told to PBS. 

“You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

“I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And ask a woman what kind of dog that is.

“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

After going through the self-check out, I did a quick inventory of the treasure I collected during my surgical strike …  

… a serenade from a kettle keeper who would rather be cold … as long as it meant he could keep his fingers dancing … 

… an older person out shopping for someplace to put his kindness … 

… the joy of New Year’s Eve winter coat hugs between old acquaintances.

The Shop N’ Save’s usually good for reminding me of things I forget I need. 

Though I didn’t see any babies, I had a helluva good time buying the envelope for my letter to my daughter.

On my way out I made sure to say thank you to the kettle keeper for playing me back out into the cold. 

And as I tried to remember where I parked my car in the crowded lot, I was already thinking of Sunday … 

… and whether the guitarist shopping for apples might know Stardust. 

 

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts Intermezzo / Torso at the Crossroads

We made it, and yet we haven’t made it … yet. 

For 13 days straight we celebrated a different treasure from my — chooses adjective carefully — “consequential” T-shirt collection. 

But it’s still 11 days before Christmas, not to mention 17 until the calendar turns over, which means over 400 hours left in our present fast where — in a fit of hubris mixed with a spasm of poor decision-making — I pledged to Karry that I could make it the rest of 2025 without buying another t-shirt. 

Or what the supportive members of my family have dubbed the “You’ll Never Make It” Tour.

As the supportive members of my family are quick to attest, the act of my setting out to accomplish something and actually accomplishing it … is no small accomplishment.

Outside of the bags of frozen Reese’s Cups I deplete on a regular and consistent basis (which is EXACTLY what eight-year-old Pete imagined adulthood looking like), my track record for finishing tasks within specified parameters is what the historians would call ‘pock-marked.’

Since the odds of future goal-setting-and-accomplishing suggest betting the Under, we thought it appropriate to seize this rare ‘mission-accomplished’ vantage point for a reflective moment, much like we do in the sugar high afterglow following double-digit Reese’s consumption.  

I think it’s fair to say alchemizing my t-shirt affection through a retrospective lens has proven successful, at least in the recent modest sample size, in curbing my appetites for acquisition. 

So my torso and I find ourselves at a Crossroads.

A.) Keep the retrospective going

(B.) Declare myself ‘cured’ and — for the next 17 days — trust in my newfound ability to resist the algorithms massing at the gates of my feeds hurling temptations like so many flaming projectiles launched from medieval trebuchets

(C.) Give in and hit ‘launch’ on my 2026 T-shirt Registry, which is almost-but-not-quite-as-full as my closet

(D.) Empty a bag of frozen Reese’s trees while we decide

(E.) Both A & D, with possibly a C chaser. 

When you put it like that, is it even a question?

Gauntlet thrown. 

By which we mean Japanese cat tribal warrior t-shirt added to the ’26 registry, bitches.

Can we keep the streak going? 

Can we perpetuate the momentum? 

Can we make it to ’26? 

What will run out first … my will power in the face of great odds? The number of clean t-shirts in my closet? The Reese’s currently in my freezer? 

As we step out in faith into uncharted territory towards an unexplored map with unknown temptation and peril waiting at every turn, we look — as all great explorers do — to Ernest Shackleton, famed leader of three expeditions to the Antarctic,  for inspiration. 

*Adds to ’26 registry.

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 12: CATSA

My friend Stephen designed this badass logo for his badass wife Sam’s badass business, whose mission is to “create the coolest, space-themed, design objects for cat lovers.” 

Mission accomplished.

Proceeds from their refined, feline designs fund cat rescue and advocacy projects for community cats and their caregivers, which me and Viktor the Cat (my sensei) agree is righteous.

I could pick this logo as Stephen’s out of a police lineup. He’s had his own singular sinister aesthetic since I met him when I was a clueless intern in the mid-90’s. I owe my professional career to Stephen’s brilliance.

Check ‘em out at catsa.co. Their merch is next level and their wearables so soft they’ll make your torso purr. 

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 11: City Lights

Type “cathedral” into my brain’s large language model, you’ll get an image of 261 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach. 

This t-shirt unlocks so much for me … beginning and ending with the Pilgrimage.

Whenever work or friends would take me to San Francisco, I’d stay at the Hotel Rex on Sutter, which was part of Chip Conley’s Joie de Vivre collection of boutique hotels, each one inspired by a different magazine. The Rex was inspired by the New Yorker, and was designed to evoke San Fran’s literary salons of the 1920s and 30s.

Their lounge was The Library, all cushy chairs, reading lamps and the magical musty smell of old books (swoon).

Its atmosphere was cozily curated for unburdening … conducive to liberating one’s hands to alternate between a good book, a pen and paper, and a half-full glass of the house red.  

Make a left exiting the hotel, I’d walk the few blocks down to Bush, hang a left and climb its hill to the iconic Dragon’s Gate.

From there take a savoring stroll through North America’s oldest and largest Chinatown, a world unto itself. 

Keep walkin’ until I find North Beach. Make the right, slowing to a reverent saunter through Jack Kerouac Alley, pausing to bow and whisper read his pavement words etched in its center, “The air was soft the stars so fine the promise of every cobbled alley so great.”

And then, proof that alley promises come true: City Lights — Ferlinghetti’s fierce, tender, defiantly flickering eternal flame of a bookstore. 

Every single second I’ve spent walking amongst its stacks has been a replenishing.

The sound of one’s shoes creaking its old wooden floors while in slow-browse reverie? A poetry all its own. 

I love reading the staff’s hand-written recommendations slash love letters adorning the shelves as much as I do the books they hype.

The pleasure of stumbling upon treasure you didn’t even know to look for.

Going upstairs to the poetry room, where Ferlinghetti’s rocker — the ‘poet’s chair’ — still sits by the window in open invitation. 

Harvesting an armful of sustenance for the suitcase home.

Walking back to the Rex drunk on Kerouac’s soft air and fine stars, clutching my brown paper bag tightly as I imagine he did his.

 

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 9: Old Crow

In the years when we were legally adults, but intellectually and emotionally still ‘ripening,’ we cultivated what some of us consider an ‘abiding affection’ for Old Crow, while others of us, if they are feeling euphemistically generous, would acknowledge under oath as a ‘relationship.’

All I know is that during the dark ‘post-college-graduation-scuffling-by-on-part-time-jobs-with-no-real-prospects’ years, Old Crow’s firm place on the bottom shelf was an accessible and fortifying presence.

And ever since, we have reverently and dutifully honored Dr. James Crow for inventing the sour mash process.

There is a loose thread of American history (that we choose not to tug terribly hard at) that believes that Old Crow was indirectly responsible for winning the Civil War. 

It was well-known that Ulysses S. Grant fancied himself a good tipple now and again. It was believed that Old Crow was a preferred part of his, um, medicinal regimen.

A story has sloshed around that critics of the general once complained about his drinking to Lincoln. To which the 16th president purportedly replied, “I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”

We’ll drink to that. 

Because sometimes it’s more about good memories than good memory.

Also, as anyone who has ever been brave, desperate, or just (like us) poor and dumb enough to send Old Crow down one’s gullet knows … it’s out for vengeance.  

In his book “The Social History of Bourbon,” author Gerald Carson relates a tale that, during the Northern Army’s siege of Vicksburg, Grant enjoyed generous nightly nightcaps of Old Crow. 

Served neat, of course. (autonomic sympathetic body shudder goes here)

And not to draw a parallel between the Union Army’s 47 days waiting out surrender and us waiting out the last of our adolescence enjoying Red-Hot-doused frozen taquitos from the microwave … but I find it hard not to wax nostalgic when it comes to Old Crow.

Its vague place in our country’s history. 

Its humble yet consistent place on the bottom shelf. 

Its proud place on this author’s torso. 

And its hallowed place keeping us company while we figured — and continue to figure — our shit out. 

Cheers.

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 8: Macho Wars

This one’s brought to you by the 14-year-old boy who lives inside us all.

I’m an unapologetic sucker for a good mashup. 

Macho, Elizabeth and Hulk tagging in for Luke, Leia and Darth?

Ringside seats, please. 

It’s one thing to have a brilliant idea, another thing entirely to bring it to life with impeccable craftsmanship. 

Reverent nod to the designer’s inspired choice to go with a wide-eyed Hogan.

I mean, big leg drop on prone opponent, right there. 

Anyone who subscribes in equal parts to The Force, Hulkamania (mid 80’s edition), and Macho Madness (all eras) will find it impossible to stare at this shirt for more than three seconds without thinking, if not saying aloud, “Ohhhhhh Yeeeeeaaaaahhhh!” 

Seriously, give it a try. 

I’ll wait. 

(One … two … three ….)

*Raises arm and/or light saber in triumph.

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 7: Fahrenheit 451

Joe Mugnaini’s brilliant cover for the first edition of Ray Bradbury’s incendiary novel. 

The book holds a special place in my heart for a couple reasons, on top of its timeless cautionary tale.

My daughter and I read it aloud together across many Saturday coffee-shop mornings when she was a young teenager, which was my first re-read of it in a good 20 years or so. What a wonderful way to be reacquainted. 

And during our re-reading, I was profoundly moved by a passage late in the book when Montag, on the run, encounters a group of kindred spirits living in the woods on the outskirts of town. And around a campfire, he remembers his grandfather. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to this passage since.

Its still glowing embers warm me as much as the campfire that coaxed the words from Bradbury’s typewriter.

It’s not only been medicine to my heart, but I’ve shared Bradbury’s beautiful words with friends and kindred spirits seeking warmth in the darkness of their own loss.

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the (person) who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” 

Always makes me think of the gardeners I’ve known in my life.

Reminds me to keep planting.

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 6: Wait a Minute Chester

I turn to this one whenever my bag is sinkin’ low.

I’m pretty sure Robbie Robertson had this t-shirt in mind when he wrote the line. 

Rick Danko singing American Shakespeare. 

His signature high-lonesome pretty much capturing the beauty and ache of what it means to be human, at least to this peaceful man’s ears.

The boys stackin’ harmonies like firewood. 

I mean, the image … coupled with the line.

I could write a 1,000 words on Levon with his sleeves rolled up.  

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