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The Stretch DC-9 had landed, taxied across the tarmac, and stopped just short of the gate. This model of airplane is properly called an MD-80, but I happen to think that Stretch DC-9 is a more descriptive and interesting name, so I’m sticking with it. I’m sure the pilot of the Stretch DC-9 announced something to us passengers, but we were parked for I-forget-how-many minutes, sitting in the dark, waiting

I speak the title line of this post to my three cohorts—aka my family—from behind the wheel of our vehicle for the past week, the silver Saturn Vue. My family faithfully ignores me. Both my wife and our older boy, Maxwell, are on their iPhones, the former sending emails to the animal caretakers with the news that we’ll be a day late, the latter sending texts and instant messages to his recently-made

The time is six o’clock on an August afternoon that is turning into an August evening. Maxwell and I are driver and passenger, respectively, in the silver Saturn Vue, and we are stuck in miserable freeway traffic at the edge of downtown Chicago. Just ahead, enticingly, is clear passage to the ramp for Interstate 290, also known as the Eisenhower Expressway, because the freeways in Chicago all have names. Maxwel

Regular enemies are common and easy enough to acquire. Everyone earns them eventually, I imagine, and they come and go. Arch enemies, though, they are special, they are a different kettle of fish. Your arch enemy is your lifelong antagonist, your intractable opponent, against whom conflicts resolve in draws or, at best, incomplete victories, and always temporary. He or She is your structural equal but ethical opposit

Motoring along U.S. Highway 280 in southern Georgia, well past Americus and heading west, I pass an estate with a gated driveway and a flagpole. Flying proudly on the latter is a Trump flag, complete with that catchy slogan: Make America Great Again. On a drive that has felt increasingly sacred with every mile, I flash the idea of pulling over, finding the offender, and shaking some sense into him. “Your hero s

Winter 2004, on the New Jersey transit bus into Manhattan, in conversation with a seatmate, I am discussing how I’ve accepted a job in Boston and my wife and I are moving to Massachusetts. Some guy overhears, sneers, and says, with great contempt, “I hate the Red Sox!” As known among the baseball cognoscenti, the line dividing Yankees and Red Sox territories is approximated by Interstate 91 through

Welcome to God’s Country Tuesday, January 9th, Charlotte Douglas International Airport. I step outside the terminal into gorgeous 70 degree weather. Rolling behind me is my businessman’s suitcase, while slung over my shoulder are two ski bags—a long skinny one for my Elans, a short dumpy affair for the boots. I flag down the hotel shuttle, and its driver stares at me quizzically. In silence he helps me with the

December, 2017 We’re getting older. The world’s getting colder. For the life of me, I don’t know the reason why. — Excerpt from “Dog and Butterfly”, by Heart As I begin writing this post, the good people of Alabama are heading to the polls to vote for U.S. Senator. The candidates are, for the Democrats, an ordinary, highly-accomplished, seemingly reasonable human being, and, for th

Congratulations to us all for surviving to the middle of November, in the year designated by the number 2017, which I just confirmed is a prime number. Meaning, 2017 cannot be written as the product of other integers, like 5 x 13 x 71 (or whatever). The Internet is an amazing repository of trivial information of use to a needy writer. The Web site I consulted for the prime number thing, which is www.calculatorsoup.co