Letter: Phones & Waterfowl
“Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.” —Abigail Adams Dear Reader, Years back, some kindly contractor erected a small deck at the bottom of the bank that runs from Dodge Street down to the river. It’s a wood-and-iron affair, maybe ten feet on a side, dangling just […]
Letter: Planned, Purple, & Obsolete
“I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” —G.K. Chesterton Dear Reader, It’s finally here. We have waited since, literally, forever; there has never been one before. We have lived so long without one that some of us may have even made the mistake of not […]
Letter: Santa, Sea Otters, & a Fairly Big Announcement
December 15, 2023 A Fairly Big Announcemnt I have next to me a piece of nice paper, off-white, heavy stock. Penciled on it is a letter, which my three-year-old daughter recently dictated: Dear Santa, Wish you were here. Santa, oh PLEASE. I LOVE you. I would like some presents. May I have some toys? And […]
Letter: Thanksgiving, Toddlers, & Controversial Proof of Humanity
“Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.” —Solanus Casey Thanksgiving Dear Reader, My two-year-old daughter is a girl of few words. She is learning language a little differently than her siblings, who all had fairly large vocabularies at her age. But she seems to be content with the handful of words at […]
Letter: Leaving the Universe
“The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.” —G.K. Chesterton April 7, 2023 Dear Reader, My five-year-old son was in the backseat of the car, and my thirteen-year-old daughter was in the front seat, when she and I began […]
Letter: Consuming Inflation
“Thrift is the really romantic thing.” —G.K. Chesterton Dear Reader, The other night someone was attempting to break into the front door of my house. The suspect was a caucasian male of average height and build, wearing a dark gray jacket. He was accompanied by a group of children. There is an artist’s rendering of […]
Letter: Space Invasion
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” —George Orwell May 6, 2022 Dear Reader, I just witnessed a space invasion. I was walking after dark, carrying my toddler daughter, to talk together and look at the stars and see if she might […]
Letter: Doomscrolling
“The work of the critic, important though it is, is of altogether secondary importance, and . . . in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does the things.” —Theodore Roosevelt April 1, 2022 Dear Reader, I just spent the better part of a day verbally doomscrolling. It all started with a good […]
Letter: Joe
“We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names.” —Gustav Mahler March 19, 2021 Dear Reader, In a lesser-known (for good reasons) Jimmy Stewart movie, Mr. Stewart’s character wishes to find a nice young man for his daughter to meet. Accordingly, he yells to a group of unknown boys, “Hey, […]
Letter: Spring & Spice
“With the coming of spring, I am calm again.” —Gustav Mahler Dear Reader, I like things that are distinctly whatever they are. I like things that have an intense, unambiguous identity. For this reason, I have in the past been a bit torn on the concept of spring. Summer is the paradise of seasons; it […]