Front Porch Perspective All Ashore That’s Goin’ Ashore Well, I’d circled the Baltimore inner harbor dockings and stood a bit, suitcase in hand, gazing up at an impressive three-domed building, each dome flying a huge pennant reading, “Old Bay Line.” And alongside the building a gangplank beckoned me. It climbed at a fairly steep angle to the main deck of the S.S. President Warfield. Suitcase clutched with left hand, I hauled myself up the gangway’s handrail to the deck. There…
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Front Porch Perspective
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE No Need For A Brick Nope, I’m not addressing you from the front porch – it’s icy out there. Rather, I’m sitting just inside a front window, woolgathering. Though, in fact, it’s not wool-gathering that I’m doing, literal or figurative. Just now I’ve been spending our prescribed aloneness running through gratefully the crowd of adults who shaped my once young man’s values. And one of those was my Great-Aunt Mame. In fact, you’d hardly think she could…
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE No Need For A Brick By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Nope, I’m not addressing you from the front porch – it’s icy out there. Rather, I’m sitting just inside a front window, woolgathering. Though, in fact, it’s not woolgathering that I’m doing, literal or figurative. Just now I’ve been spending our prescribed aloneness running through gratefully the crowd of adults who shaped my once young man’s values. And one of those was my Great Aunt…
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE If Not For A Buttonhook By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Some years ago, I had dinner at Great-Grandpa’s house down in tidewater Maryland. It’s a handsome brick house with dormers, and it used to face a clear view across the fields to broad West River. But realtors overran the area, and the fields filled up with houses for commuters to Washington. And Great-Grandpa’s house is now a restaurant – a high-toned French one, mind you,…
Front Porch Perspective On Thanksgiving, Remembering Blue Four years ago on a snowy winter day, Dr. Fran Fassett came to our house and released our good old Blue from his failed body. It was amazingly peaceful, even blessed time. Anne and I had had Blue for about 10 years. He was a rescue dog who’d been picked up along Route 88 near Oneonta. Thank God, he was brought to our own animal shelter. A friend on staff there contacted Anne;…
COLUMN FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE Angst At Age 15 By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Last time we talked, I described the start of a major teenage crisis: when I knocked a nun flat on on her face, and then sat on her. To summarize: During halftime of our high school’s basketball team, I was selling candy and gum in the hallway just outside the gym to raise money for new uniforms. I was sitting on the edge of rickety…
A FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE She Would Have Loved That Smile Editor’s Note: Jim Atwell penned this column on Aug. 30, 2001, when he and Anne were still living in Fly Creek. By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I can’t do justice in words to an incident last Saturday. It was too rich with meaning. But the moment was so wondrous that I’ll still try to tell you. Read the words, please; then make up for their shortfall from your…
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE But What’s Her Name? By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I’m at ease on my front porch on a beautiful afternoon, admiring the perspective up tree-lined Delaware Avenue. As the long last block heads toward Chestnut Street, curbs and sidewalks seem to draw together, trees conspire more closely over the street, and the two rows of handsome house fronts, bedecked with flags and hanging planters, draw closer till the last ones opposite each other almost block…
COLUMN FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE To Sell, First, Sell Yourself By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – Many years ago, when Earth was still cooling, I was a young professor teaching rhetoric. That study had been greatly advanced by Aristotle. He was not long dead then, so the topic was still fresh. Aristotle said that rhetoric is “the art of effective, persuasive speech.” The crassest form is used by the used-car salesman who scuttles across the lot with wide…