Aging out strikes me as extremely relevant when one considers many members of the two houses of Congress. Especially the Senate. A lot of old suits bustling about that chamber. The composition of the House appears to have its fair share of AARP-eligible members as well.…
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Hawthorn Hill Journal - Page 2
Predictability is essential to spiritual stability. For most of our history we have been able, despite the execrable behaviors of some, to base our collective lives on certain assumptions. I write here of birds and spring chores because they are part and parcel of what have always been nature’s patterns. We depend on some certainties if we are to function with any degree of stability.…
There is a connection between pea planting and the buffoonery we witness daily in the name of curtailing government spending. There should not be. When Thoreau planted his beans on the banks of Walden Pond, he could go about with a clear head.…
Make sense of this, if you will. How can one individual of clearly dubious character freeze so many into total submission? I know it is not the first time. And it will not be the last. No tyrant ever goes it alone. But what does it say about human nature?…
If on a day’s saunter I neither see nor hear any birds, it is of no matter. There are so many other things to see and sensations to experience. Also, as one of my favorite writers, Scott Russell Sanders, put it some time ago, there is much to gain from staying put.…
As I sit here looking out my window every day, and after reading through what are considered credible news resources most mornings, one cannot help but be struck by the preponderance of incivility just about everywhere. Perhaps my thoughts at this moment are clouded by the dismal view from my study window.…
My lifelong relationship with Thoreau, Emerson, Robert Frost and a host of notable American authors and poets stems from those days in Bill’s classroom and on many of the walks that we would take, especially on warm, sunny days. His was an expansive grasp of American literature, as well as history.…
One aspect of this perennial circus that I would like to see done away with is the placing of signs everywhere—lawns, intersections, buildings, cars, etc. My wife has been a bit grumpy with me because I have insisted that we not place a sign at the bottom of our driveway divulging to all the world our preferred candidate.…
White faces, black faces, yellow faces, what a wonderful pallet of what America is and always has been about, a stewpot of all kinds of people from incredibly diverse backgrounds, all sharing in the joy they feel at the accomplishments of their fellow citizens. This color thing has always puzzled me.…
This annual garlic adventure of mine turns out to be a time to wrestle, without having to pin them down, some of the more worrisome problems we now face “in these United States.” It is easy to ignore unpleasantness; even harder to know what to do about it. As I was hanging up the last of the garlic, I was thinking of W.B. Yeats’ great poem, “The Second Coming.”…
