In mid-February, my friend Steve Farrand suggested I write a piece about his friend Liz Loewald who, at age 98, had just published her memoir, “The Tree Grows Standing Still.” Steve had served as Liz’s Russian tutor when she was in her 80s. Liz sounded like a most interesting woman, so I agreed. I read […]

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” Those are the clever words of British humorist Terry Pratchett, who couldn’t have explained the aging process more succinctly. I know his words are true because I turned 60 this week. It’s a heck of a thing to have burned through six decades already. […]

Spring is my favorite season – full of hope, new beginnings, and the start of the growing season in Maine! Farmers and gardeners are ramping up for the coming growing season by planning gardens, planting seeds, and working to prepare for the busy months ahead. What if during your planning, you decided to set aside […]

As the Legislature left town this week after what began as the third annual pandemic session, there was a note of mild optimism. COVID didn’t continue to dominate, and lawmakers made enough progress on recalcitrant issues to merit a modest celebration. There were incremental advances in housing policy, criminal justice reform, energy, and the fraught […]

More years ago than I really care to count, the children’s librarian in my little town in rural northwestern Connecticut, apparently tired of my endlessly renewing the same book over and over again, pressed a copy of “The White Mountains” by John Christopher into my eight-year-old hands. Mrs. Bullock was her name. She was the […]

While Major League Baseball fiddles with its rules — such as adding designated hitters in the National League, and limiting the ways defenses can shift — players seem more preoccupied than ever with the game’s unwritten rules. This was on vivid display the other day in the final inning of play between the Washington Nationals […]