Self-Absorbed Boomer

"[A] delightfully named blog", (Sewell Chan, New York Times). "[R]elentlessly eclectic", (Gary, Iowa City). Taxing your attention span since 2005.

Monday, October 18, 2021

Colin Powell, 1937-2021

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Some years ago - probably in the fall, winter, or early spring, because I had left work and it was dark - I was walking along Madison Avenue...
Tuesday, October 05, 2021

Some pet peeves I can't give up.

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"To give" as opposed to "to gift" is still a good and useful verb. Using the past tense "gave" instead of ...
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Friday, September 10, 2021

Twenty Years

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Here's the poem I posted fifteen years ago:  It’s five years since the turbofan clatter,  the sudden silence, the loud report, the screa...
Sunday, September 05, 2021

"Union Maid"; a song for Labor Day

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"Union Maid" has lyrics by erstwhile Brooklynite Woody Guthrie , set to the tune of a popular song from 1907, "Red Wing,...
Saturday, August 07, 2021

The Mets are no longer first in their division.

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 I started to write this when they were only a half game behind the Phillies. Now, with a second loss to the Phils, they are a full game and...
Friday, July 30, 2021

The Economist's "Johnson" beckons me off my usage high horse.

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 Well, at least a little. This week's issue of The Economist , in its "Johnson" column, a regular feature dealing with usage m...
Sunday, June 27, 2021

Another journey, to Edith Wharton's country house.

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  This past Monday and Tuesday we took another brief vacation, this one a small group tour led by our friend Louise Devenish, to the Berkshi...
Saturday, June 05, 2021

A Finger Lakes weekend, two train journeys, and lots of wine.

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Our friends Chris Bennem and Lisa Moore invited us to spend the long Memorial Day weekend at their house near Canandaigua Lake (photo above)...
Sunday, May 23, 2021

Celebrating Mary A. Whalen's 83rd Birthday

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Yesterday was the 83rd birthday of the small coastal oil tanker Mary A. Whalen (photo above). She is owned by  PortSide New York , a not fo...
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About Me

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I was born in a city renowned in Vaudeville humor, Altoona Pennsylvania. My dad was in the military, so we moved many times in my childhood. We lived in rural England from the time I was five until I was eight, and I began my formal education in a county council school, where my being American is likely all that saved me from having my bottom caned. When I was eleven my father retired from the Air Force, and we settled in Tampa.I graduated from the University of South Florida and Harvard Law School. Since then, apart from two years' active Army duty, I have lived in New York City; and have lived in the Borough of Brooklyn for many years. I'm married to Martha Foley, an historian and archivist. We are proud of our daughter, Elizabeth, and our granddaughters, Ada and Sigrid.
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