Monthly Archives: July 2014

Where have you gone, Mayberry?

Sometimes, when you’re flicking channels, you just have to stop and watch for awhile. That’s what happened to me this week while surfing through news reports. From children at the border with Mexico, to corpses being dragged around Gaza, I saw the momentary black-and-white blur of Andy Griffith’s retro coif. It made me pause. So I sat […]

What E.E. Cummings teaches us about love and death

Earlier this summer, after riding my bike along the Greenbelt in South Portland, I pit stopped at Bug Light Park to take a break and watch the waves and kite flyers. There, at a nearby bench, a young man serenaded a beautiful redhead from an open book. The girl sat with one hand over her mouth, hiding a smile, […]

An immigration tale: Yiayia’s American dream

Last week, in my piece on soccer, I wrote about several immigrant boys playing a pick up game on Portland’s Western Prom. They probably came from the neighborhood surrounding nearby Howard C. Reiche Community School. Whenever walking my dogs that way, I wave and nod to families sitting out on their stoops in the cooler sunsets. They come from […]

How can Jurgen Klinsmann really improve the U.S. national men’s soccer team?

This week I was walking my dogs on the Western Prom in Portland and witnessed a rarity: a pickup soccer game. The 5 boys were in the 10-12 year range, and were playing a makeshift half-field contest, 2-on-2 with 1 goalie. As best I could tell, 3 boys were African and 2 Hispanic or Middle Eastern, […]