The Republicans are convening in Philadelphia this week and I’m doing my best to ignore them, but it’s hard. We have so little chance to have any effect on our national government – beyond paying the bills – that by the time politicians get around to throwing us our quadrennial morsel, I’m awfully hungry. The […]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, in public spaces in large cities, it was not uncommon to be accosted by an outgoing young person passing out stickers. The stickers said “I Love Your Smile” and featured a picture of a cute, smiling animal, often a Cheshire cat. The patter went like this: “Hey, you’ve […]

Every hour, on the hour, or close to it, I hear bells toll in Burlington. First there’s the United Methodist Church on College Street. What I hear is not really bells, but some mechanical or electric device. Thirty seconds or so later, I hear the same hour struck from the cupola of city hall. I […]

Adrienne and I had to run some lunch-hour errands a few weeks ago, so we grabbed some sandwiches to eat in the car. We thought we’d park down by the municipal pier and look at the lake, but we forgot now that summer is here, you have to pay four dollars to pull into the […]