EAST MONTPELIER – Change, we have been told, is the only constant. In recent years, we’ve come to believe, change is accelerating at a dizzy pace. And how many times have we heard the phrase, “the good old days”? The good old days, I always muse, before antibiotics and novocaine[Read More…]
A Yankee Notebook
Midwinter Has Fared Much Better
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – Our culture is pretty thoroughly saddled with rituals and celebrations that originated in our distant, non-scientific past, when we explained phenomena to be the result of supernatural prompting. I guess maybe they seem cute or quirky, and are thus charming. So we continue to[Read More…]
The Unmistakable Aroma of Low Tide
EAST MONTPELIER – Hagar and I drove into the big rotary at the foot of the Nahant Causeway, trying to judge the volume of traffic on a Sunday noon. The friendly voice of Siri spoke to me in her Irish accent from the dashboard: “At the roundabout, take the first[Read More…]
They Tell me I Ended up Sitting on the Floor
EAST MONTPELIER – It had been a lovely weekend, courtesy of Martin Luther King Jr.: lots of pleasant conversation and snacks in the two chairs in the office, supper at Julio’s Friday, lunch at the Wayside Saturday, shopping for groceries at the Chopper. Icy cold outside, but snug inside. Bea[Read More…]
You Get Your First Pinch Hitter
EAST MONTPELIER – Clack, clack, clackety, ding, zzzzut, clunk. Clackclack clackety-clack… That onomatopoetic rhythm is tattooed in my memory of the 1970s more clearly than the Vietnam War, the Peanut Farmer President, or even the Beatles. Up in the attic loft there was a man possessed of ideas, a primitive[Read More…]
Thor was in a Charitable Mood
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – The narration, a modern version of the second chapter of Luke, began the old familiar Christmas story. Mary and Joseph shuffled down the church aisle on cue, Mary cuddling a bundle clearly intended to be the baby Jesus, and Joseph strangely empty-handed. The mother[Read More…]
The Potential for Screw-ups is Forever Before Me
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – You know you’ve reached the age of mental saturation when, in spite of everything that’ll be happening between now and New Year’s Day, your major concern isn’t whether or not you’ll take the Polar Plunge into the sea to welcome in the new year,[Read More…]
We Haven’t Changed a Bit in 180 Years
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – For almost 50 years, during the week before Christmas, I’ve been haunted by a spirit – the ghost of Charles Dickens, who rose from the grinding poverty of his childhood home to become England’s most famous writer. At the peak of his fame, crowds[Read More…]
Walking a Bit Closer to the Edge
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – My father, raised conservative Dutch Reformed and later ordained an Episcopal priest, never would venture onto a computer or the internet, even when I gave him the computer and showed him how. When I asked him why, his answer was a bit evasive, but[Read More…]
Some Things are Worth Repeating
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – My friend, the late Walker Weed of Etna, N.H., was the oldest member of the Geriatric Adventure Society, and easily the most experienced. When he offered an opinion or a pronouncement, I listened. He opined one day that if you ever have had an[Read More…]
Deer Camp Musings
by Willem Lange ST. HUBERTS, N.Y. — It was what my grandfather used to call a “Bummelzug day.” A Bummelzug is a local train that stops at every station; and when you’re having that kind of day, there are a million things you have to do before you can get[Read More…]