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Archive for the ‘paterfamilias’ Category

after all these years: Sports Illustrated

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on December 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The two principal articles in the December 22, 2008 issue of Sports Illustrated number that lies before me are why SI remains the uncontested leader in North American general sports periodicals. Jim Trotter’s ‘D As in Dominant’ connects the dots between the Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain of yore and its present day top-ranked NFL defense. Joe Posnanski’s noir take on the winter baseball meetings in Las Vegas (!) captures the pathos and ridicule that are both required for a full understanding of this off-season institution.

Both are simply great sports writing. (more…)

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founding brothers: David Halberstam, The Teammates. A portrait of friendship

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on August 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The late David Halberstam’s insightful baseball writing has been a boon for fans with long memories. There are more of them attached to this odd American sport than any other. A penchant for statistics and scars that never heal are practically the calling card of those of us who are drawn, inexorably, to the diamond with every new Spring.

This 2003 tribute to four skinny kids on the 1946 Boston Red Sox is not so much about the game as about the uncommon friendship that linked four of its iconic players. Halberstam has helped us to understand the grace that made Bobby Doer a lifetime interpreter of the gifted, irascible, and troubled Ted Williams; about the fealty to the sports unwritten rules that moved Johnny Pesky to accept the blame for a ball he never held (at least according to Halberstam’s reconstruction) until ten years after the true culprit had gone to his grave; and about the tragedy of a season that came so close to glory but ended up heralding a generation (these are short in baseball time) of mediocrity in the precursor of what we have come to know as Red Sox Nation. (more…)

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caught and kept: Chuck Robbins, Flyfisher’s Guide to Montana

Posted in paterfamilias, tagged , on August 9, 2008| Leave a Comment »

It is difficult to imagine a more splendid introduction to flyfishing in Big Sky country than this thick (472 pp.) 2005 publication in the Flyfisher’s Guide To … series. Like all writing in the flyfishing subculture, a fair amount of knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed, though Robbins is less guilty of talking over the heads of apprentices like this reviewer than most writers on his beloved avocation. (more…)

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fresh air: The Complete Guide to Windows and Doors (Black & Decker)

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on June 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This review comes from a certified non-handy guy with minimal practical skills. I was fortunate enough a year ago to discover a fine window guy. As a result, we have excellent Pella window replacements in our 1930 Indiana home.

I bought this book to help me with next steps: specifically, what do do about our crumbling main entrance way and our on-again, off-again internal doors. It all has charm, you understand. The problem is it only works half the time. (more…)

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Tucker leaves us

Posted in fauna, paterfamilias, tagged , on June 22, 2008| 1 Comment »

Tucker left us this week just as he came and just as he lived with us: completely trusting our judgment, celebrating our company, gratefully accompanying us wherever we led him.

The trend line of his cancer tilted downward at a deeper angle in these last weeks. Though he seemed as happy and almost as energetic as ever, the losing battle to keep his face and our home clean from the massive tumor’s debris taxed him and us. We lit scented candles against the odor of death. It became harder and harder to cuddle him. He seemed to protect us from the affected side of his face, but his suffering was palpable and things were not going to improve. (more…)

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remind me how today felt

Posted in my hometown, paterfamilias, tagged on May 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Remind me five weeks from now, when the frenzy has engulfed me again and I’m in a hotel room on some two-week business itinerary, waking up and taking five minutes to remember where I am, how good today felt.

It has been so long since a Saturday at home came down like this one. Sleeping ’til a rested body agrees on its own volition to rise, reading in my easy chair with Tucker and Rosie sprawled on the carpet around me. A conversation, a real, genuine conversation with a family member when we looked at each other and recognized something other than a lunatic tempest in lateral motion to somewhere else. (more…)

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Tucker’s last Spring

Posted in fauna, my hometown, paterfamilias, tagged , on April 30, 2008| 1 Comment »

The voice of our wonderful Colombian-born veterinarian was somber when I called her from Frankfurt to inquire on the results of Tucker’s biopsy. The veterinariological technical lingo added up to just one thing: Tucker is not long for this world.

‘Just enjoy him!’, she counseled with the textured, comprehending warmth of a woman who could have been a pastor, a psychologist, a physician, or a veterinarian. She chose the latter, and not for lack of options. (more…)

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a letter to my sons on my birthday from the Flight 93 Memorial Site, Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Posted in denkschrift, paterfamilias, tagged on January 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Dear Christopher and Johnny,

These Pennsylvania mountains mean nothing to you. How could they? You’ve grown up in places we Pennsylvanians consider much more exotic, though they seem perfectly natural to you. Places like Costa Rica and England.

Still, this Pennsylvania landscape that continues to evoke feelings of home in me on my infrequent visits is exquisite in its own way. To my eye on this windy, blue-skied January morning, the intermingling of woodland and cultivated fields—though these lie fallow on this Winter’s day—occurs in perfect proportion.

Yet this place brings a tear and more sobering thoughts than physical beauty can explain. As I write you these words, my sons, I look out over the place where Flight 93 plowed its way forty-five feet into the Pennsylvania soil on September 11, 2001. (more…)

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rum pum pum pum …

Posted in denkschrift, my hometown, paterfamilias, tagged on December 25, 2007| Leave a Comment »

2007 has been an exhausting, occasionally degrading year.

This Christmas morning, following upon the heels of one of my middle-sized life’s sweetest worship experiences last evening as a guest at Indianapolis’ East 91st Street Christian Church, breathes comfortably in the pleasant bosom of family and God’s tenderness.

But oh, what a year!

From my morning’s easy chair, waiting for Christmas Day’s sun to rise, I cannot bear to think of another target aimed at, let alone hit. I am stripped bare by expectations and the drivenness imposed upon me by my peers and boiling up from within as from a poisoned spring. (more…)

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I’ll bet you didn’t know … : Jonathan Steinberg, Fountain Pens. Their history and art

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on November 23, 2007| 1 Comment »

This handsome volume reflects the high quality standards, cantankerous spirit, and eccentrically traditionalist preferences that seem to characterize many of us who are drawn to the impractical beauty we insist upon calling fountain pens. (more…)

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