Dairy Queen

I was sitting in my backyard this afternoon with sore feet and a bittersweet heart, thinking about that one hot day that Val and I put the dog in the car and drove over to Dairy Queen. Or maybe we were coming back from somewhere, because otherwise why would we Continue Reading

like shaved chocolate, like magnetic filings, like fragments of the whole

Here are some things that happened today and yesterday, both very fine and decent days. Yesterday Valerie called me from Montana.  She and the dog were (she explained) sitting on a hill in the back pasture, regarding the sky.  Only Tuley did not think they should sit still when there Continue Reading

Pelicans, feathers of joy, 1913 and a generous librarian

In 1913 the architect A.E. Doyle built a beach cottage in Manzanita, a lonely hamlet on the wild Oregon coast. He built it for Mary Isom, Portland’s head librarian. (Doyle finished Portland’s lovely new “crown jewel,” the Central Library, the same year.) Among library staff Mary is informally considered our Continue Reading