2catsdriving

March 24, 2025April 29, 2025

Easter Inc.?

The White House is once again planning the Easter egg-rolling event that dates to 1878, during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, soon after Congress outlawed playing games on the Capitol grounds.

But this year there’s a change afoot that may alter the complexion of the event from a quaint and family-friendly gathering that could draw tens of thousands of people to the White House lawn on April 21, 2025 — to something more akin to McEaster.

Or Easter™, brought to you by …

February 23, 2025February 22, 2025

Scuttling The United States

I met Jimmy Jazwinski at sea in the summer of 1966.

Or really, we met near Le Havre, France, on our way out to sea. We were each about nine and headed across the Atlantic on board the SS United States — a luxury ocean liner in her prime, with a capacity of about 1,900 passengers and a crew of over 1,000, operated by the United States Lines.

December 23, 2024

Lead on, Spirits!

“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

“Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

November 20, 2024November 20, 2024

Walter’s Garden

The recent death of my 18½-year-old sleek black cat Neville — a girl cat with a boy’s name — made me think of poor Walter, another sleek and almost entirely black cat I have cared for (and about) in my life.

November 6, 2024November 8, 2024

D-Day Plus 1

At my cluttered desk half an hour after sunrise on Nov. 6, I was scrolling through the morning’s dismal news reports when I saw them: Probably 20 Canada geese, in two fluid chevrons flying around the Middlesex Corporate Center on Broad Street and then past my third-floor windows and over my building.

I can’t imagine how much energy they must put into keeping their nine- or ten-pound bodies aloft. But that’s what they do, even the day after an election. Seems like there might be a lesson in that.

August 5, 2024August 25, 2024

Melville, Just Out of Reach

It’s been a dream of mine to hear Moby-Dick read out loud, from cover to cover, at one of the events held each year to celebrate Herman Melville’s Aug. 1 birthday.

But life keeps interfering.

Continue reading “Melville, Just Out of Reach”

June 16, 2022January 15, 2023

A Cruise Night to Remember

Herb Caso’s black 1930 Model A Coupe looks just like the car my mother owned during college.

Caso’s car has a rumble seat, as did my mother’s. (Ford offered rumble seats as options on some Model A’s from 1928 through 1936.)

The original roof on Caso’s car was wood, as it was on my mother’s car, although in the process of restoring his own car, Caso replaced the wood roof with a metal one.

“I modernized everything,” he said.

February 11, 2022June 12, 2024

Music to my Ears

It’s the hold music that gets me.

Every time.

Continue reading “Music to my Ears”

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022

Coral? Or perhaps …

My parents went shopping for a car on an early evening in the early 1960s, with light provided by the tail end of a sunset and the blazing overhead lamps on poles at the lot. The dealer told them the color of the station wagon they were looking at favorably was “Coral” – a delightful name that promises a natural getaway with warm breezes and cool water.
They bought it.

Continue reading “Coral? Or perhaps …”

December 24, 2020December 25, 2020

Sharing Christmas With Billy

I bought my father a couple of books for Christmas 2020: one about engineering feats and failures (he taught engineering for decades), another about inventions and innovation (he is known for MacGyvering nearly anything with a leftover hunk of aluminum and a couple of sheet metal screws).

When I bought the books, Dad was still reading quite often, and enjoying it. With all that’s changed since then, I’m afraid my father’s books may go unread.