I have been in Amsterdam now for six days. It’s Sunday morning, cool with a hint of dampness in the air, birds were singing earlier around five a.m. when I first opened my eyes. The Dutch weather has been mostly ugly, cool to cold, blustery winds, gray skies for the most part and rain just about every day. But what did I expect weather-wise, this is Northern Europe and it’s only the first week in May. The trees are green and the tulips are up and outside my window right now in the quiet early time at my hotel, through the [View Full Entry]

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It’s written on the Metro car walls; it’s written on the street signs; it’s written on the tombs at Pere Lachaise Cemetery. “L’individu qui pense contre la sociéte qui dort, voilá l’histoire éternelle et le printemps aura toujours le meme hiver à vaincre.” This from a Metro car wall, not signed by the poet, or did he plagiarize it from someone else? I am easily fooled, as I have never seen this thought before. My raw translation: “For he who thinks poorly of a sleeping society—consider the eternal story of spring always having the same w [View Full Entry]

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“AM I INSANE?” That’s what I asked myself shortly after arriving in Paris. I was tired; exhausted to the bone is a better way to put it—drained. I had not slept for 24 hours—a screaming infant across the aisle from me on the eight-hour plus flight helped in that regard. I was questioning my own sanity for leaving a beautiful, loving wife, the soon to appear fresh greenery of a Michigan spring after a horrid winter plus all the comforts of home just to feel like loose gravel raked over a dozen times into a road bed. Really, dear reader, I [View Full Entry]

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"Mickey is a rat! Mickey is a rat!" That's what my placard read. It's also what I vociferously chanted as I marched down Pennsylvania Ave with hundreds of other concerned citizens in a protest march against the proposed Disney's America theme park project planned for the historic Haymarket area of Northern Virgina. That was in the summer of 1994, my first summer of living in the DC metropolitan area. Later that same year, Disney's top gun Michael Eisner dropped the plans for the "theme park" without explanation. Maybe protest marches do work sometimes. Marilyn and I now live in Michigan, b [View Full Entry]

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I fly to Paris on April 21. This will begin the first part of a zigzag round-the-world-adventure that I've had on my mind for years. I will explore Europe for six months. For two weeks I will immerse myself in Paris for the second time in my life (a young man goes to Paris, an old man returns to Paris--aren't these lyrics from a old Kingston Trio song?). After Paris, I plan to wander through the Balkans for a couple of months. Beginning in July, I will do four weeks of Italian language lessons in Rome. During the months of autumn, [View Full Entry]

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