A Random Memory

When I was temporarily stationed in England on multiple occasions several years ago, I spent a lot of time walking in the evenings and on weekends. I often walked from RAF Menwith Hill Station to the nearby villages of Dacre or Summerbridge.

Invariably I walked past a small fenced enclosure with a black mare. She was a beautiful horse and I always wondered why she was always alone. I never saw another horse with her, and I never saw a person with her.

I imagine that many years earlier a father brought home this horse as a gift for his beloved daughter. And now that daughter has grown up and moved away.

I imagine that the horse is lonely and the father lonelier. I wonder where the young woman ended up. I wonder what stories the young woman could tell about her love for her horse. My hunch: she has moved to London, is very successful, in a big corner office with windows, and dreams of being back in Yorkshire with Blackie.

If I could write, one of my first essays would be about this horse and the girl who rode her.

Saving Public Libraries

I notice folks are signing a petition to save the Fairfax County public libraries, Virginia. Just a random posting.  If I were a resident of Fairfax County I would sign. Some years ago I donated a bit of money to "buy" a chair at the new Minneapolis Central Library for an author who had a "love affair with England."

... my love has gone away...

In my original blog I posted this song and said that I had no explanation why it made me think of you.

I remember running down to the local village grocery to pick up eggs, ham, and bread ... but never milk.


No Milk Today, Herman's Hermits

Nancy Sit sings No Milk Today and it was on YouTube before it was pulled for copyright violation. If I ever see it again, I will definitely post it. It's too bad it's been removed. 

When in the end...

"When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them." -- Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Out of Africa, 1937.

... and that is why I could not answer the questions you asked.

The Beast in the Jungle

...by Henry James.

Perhaps the best romance novella ever written.

It needs to be savored; it needs to be read slowly: every phrase, every sentence. And then re-read.


I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hank Williams