Category: Uncategorized
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Fall 2022
Ten days ago I was having a fairly productive day, having gotten up early (8:00 is early for this retiree) and marched through my to do list while Sarah, my house cleaner of many years, worked her magic. Shortly after she left in the early afternoon, I was coming downstairs in my clogs carrying the…
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Halloween 2022
My Grandpa Cecil—Zeke to his friends—was born on Halloween 1897, and today would be his 125th birthday. A true American success story, Cecil Calvert Senseman was the eldest child of Ohio farmer Ed Senseman and his wife Bertha, who died in 1912 when Cecil was 15. Their mother’s death separated Bertha’s children; Cecil, his younger…
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BIRTHDAY No. 70
Today is another glorious autumn afternoon in Madbury NH, a fortnight past celebrating my 70th birthday with good friends on an equally fine day, fall color ablaze outdoors, afternoon light raking through the west windows as supremely talented Parisienne pianist Mathilde Handelsman played a program of Schumann, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Gershwin, ending with a…
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Reunion in Oxford MS 15-19 Sept 2022
My long mid-September weekend in Mississippi meant catching up with both friends of my youth and middle age in two charming and completely different houses, a tonic reminder of southern hospitality seasoned with hilarity, immersion in a way of being ever so far removed from my adopted home of New England, and the formal end…
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Obama portraits postscript: looking back
I got some reflected double images when I shot this photo with my Samsung Galaxy 10; those ghostly blurs are NOT part of Mariana Cook’s 1996 shot. But they make me wonder: could this accomplished young couple possibly have imagined what lay ahead for them? Gazing back through the years is always a double exposure,…
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Old–and REALLY old acquaintance at the MFA, Boston
On the first of September I spent a fine time at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on the first day the Obama portraits commissioned by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery were on display for members. The portraits have been touring the country, and Boston is their last stop before returning to Washington, D.C. …
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RIP Queen Elizabeth II
She led a life of duty, devotion, and dignity. May she rest, at long last, in peace.View post to subscribe to site newsletter.
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Labor Day and History, 5 Sept 2022
When Francis Scott Key first saw “by the dawn’s early light” a huge garrison flag, the original star spangled banner, flying over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland on 14 September 1814, he knew that the British bombardment of the Fort had failed to prompt an American surrender. The British fleet withdrew, and the successful defense…
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Why I like THE BEAR 31 August 2022
Having now succumbed to temptation by streaming through all 8 episodes of The Bear for the second time in as many weeks, I’m doing a little self-audit to examine just why I love this series (which I’m happy to note will indeed have a second season). The first few reasons are quite personal. My working…
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Thinking Ink: Tutored by Art
“Tutored by my art” is how Friar Laurence, the herbalist in Romeo and Juliet who compounds a sleeping potion for Juliet, describes his pharmaceutical credentials. In the past few days of editing my chapter on life lessons taught in that play, that phrase has leapt from the page to chime with other activities of the…
Georgeann Murphy 