A Yankee Notebook

Do you suppose that anybody boarding the RMS Titanic in 1912 took the trouble to count the lifeboats, calculate their capacity, and measure that against the number of people on board?

by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – It’s a late winter morning, almost a year into the enforced isolation dictated by

I have an old friend in Texas, a former classmate, who reports that her years, her eyesight, and her decreasing ability to handle complicated matters are leaving her more dependent upon her family – a few of whom, luckily live within miles of her home.

If there’s anything more hellish in the life of an elderly Yankee than driving in Boston traffic, it’s anticipating having to.

I’d have to rate the Christmas of 1958 as the worst I’ve ever experienced.

Snow was falling softly past the streetlamps in the village, muffling the sounds of the occasional car and the rattle of the brook down behind the post office and the general store. It was just past suppertime, and folks were settled in for the evening.

Many of us remember the Kingston Trio’s rendition, back in the late 50s, of “Merry Minuet,” whose lyrics began, “They’re rioting in Africa, they’re starving in Spain; there’s hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.”

Let’s imagine for a few moments that we are Bill Watterson’s creation, Calvin, in his fantasy hero role as Spaceman Spiff (“Free to roam the heavens in man’s noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!”).