I went to two very interesting lectures in Hadley yesterday. Hadley is just south of Sunderland, where I live, and the town recently celebrated its 350th birthday. Part of the observance was the publication of a book called Cultivating a Past: Essays on the History of Hadley, Massachusetts, edited by […]
My daughter Sarah is just back from Oaxaca, Mexico, and I’m just tickled that she went there for GoNOMAD and had a great time. It’s not exactly a free vacation, because it’s work, but it’s the kind of work you want. Just talking about Sarah, I noticed this urge to […]
This photo is by Jordan Kauffman, whom I do not know. My Groton buddy Stanley Matthews posted it on Facebook.
I’m learning a lot from Cornelia Hancock, the 23-year-old New Jersey woman who arrived at Gettysburg three days after the battle. [Letter of a Civil War Nurse] She almost didn’t get there. In Baltimore her party met Dorothea Dix, superintendent of Army nurses. “She looked the nurses over and pronounced […]
When my mom was in the hospital in Springfield, we asked them to provide what is called “comfort care only.” That means they don’t do a lot of invasive tests and IVs and catheters. A doctor came over to us and told us we were doing the right thing for […]
He stuck up for the lowly and the oppressed. He preached a new kingdom of peace and justice. He was crucified but he lives on. You know who I mean… Spartacus! I’m reading The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler and I’m getting caught up in his rendition of this famous story. […]
I have written before about my friend Daoud Nassar, the founder of the Tent of Nations near Bethlehem, a center for international peace and understanding. The Israelis have been trying to seize Daoud’s land, despite the fact that his grandfather paid taxes to the Ottoman Turks and has the receipts […]
I just took a drive down what for me is the most beautiful road in the world, New Hampshire Route 153. For some it’s the road to Freedom (about four miles south of Eaton) but for me it’s the road to South Conway, where I have traveled for more than […]
I’ve been reading Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, and it’s really absorbing to walk with her around the battlefield at Gettysburg after the Union Army had moved on, a scene of unimaginable carnage where 300 surgeons worked for five days performing amputations, filling wagon after wagon […]
Funny the stuff that sticks in your head. At Groton School I played the third priest in a production of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, directed by Carl Tucker, who also played the part of Thomas Becket. Philip Kunhardt the third also turned in a stellar performance as the […]