When you can’t leave the park alone

A recent safe walk to Onondaga Lake Park found the trees have reached the stage I’ve awaited. I will appreciate their shade for months. Green here is very good for my strolls.

My friend finds my writing clips

You know you’re good friends when somebody’s been going through their old stuff and finds your gold. Greg messaged me with the news that his boxes contained some of my old college newspaper clips. Holy cow. We attended junior college and then transferred to finish up our bachelor’s together way, way back. We worked on…

Hold still, will you, pretty cardinal?

Ever since my dear wife Karen and I spotted the make and female cardinals during our safe walks around the neighborhood streets, we hoped for a backyard visit. And I wished for the chance for a good photograph. This has led to a lot of Karen calling me outside urgently from my keyboard tap-tapping in…

There’s a reason I like elephants

My dear wife Karen and I appreciated a Netflix movie by the title of Holiday in the Wild. OK, that’s a bit of a tease to my upcoming Monday Movie Review. But while watching, it also brought me back a decade, to the day when my music writer’s job at the big daily brought me…

Now we need it to warm up

The pool openers arrived in our backyard, a few days before Memorial Day, actually. My dear wife Karen was ready, with all the stuff going on outside our sanctuary. The water level was perfect. Of course, some of the magic stuff was needed for clearing from a winter without filtering. The fresh air did it…

Happy Memorial Day to all who gave for us

From our little Village of Liverpool, N.Y., to every community large and small in this country of ours: Happy Memorial Day 2020. We give our thanks to those who gave their lives serving in the U.S. Military. That is the true and original mission for this holiday. I mean no disrespect when I also extend…

Our photogenic friend Lexi

Our safe backyard barbecue visit to our great friend and neighbor Georgia’s house was made even more special because we got to hang around with Lexi, too. The beautiful black lab is just about the same age as our cherished rescue mutt Ellie B. Lexi likes to receive my head rubs, and, yeah, a little…

That’s a big bunny

While appreciating a safe barbecue in our great friend and neighbor Georgia’s backyard, I spotted a rabbit in an adjacent yard. I grabbed my iPhone 8 and quietly moved off to investigate. It was a large rabbit. A really large rabbit. I was surprised how it allowed me the opportunity to zoom in several times.…

A neighborly, safe cookout

Our great friend and neighbor Georgia asked us over for a bit of barbecue chicken and such. We talked it over and decided we could visit her backyard safely. Indeed, we were able to keep six feet between us at all times. We showed up wearing masks, but of course had to take them down…