I went to Barack Obama’s favorite diner, Valois, before I left Chicago. It was too cool — there were photos of him all over the place, smiling alongside the owner, and a big poster of his “favorite things to order.” Apparently bacon, eggs, and pancakes were one of his choice combos. The waiter, John, […]
Down in Old San Antone
Posted August 10th, 2011 at 5:17 pm (UTC-4)
It’s “San Antonio,” of course, but I keep thinking of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, singin’ about “Old San Antone” when it was a sleepy, blistering-hot place far down at the end of the trail. It’s hotter than ever there now, as you know if you’ve heard about the record heat wave and drought […]
‘Most Unusual and Surrealistic’ Central Park
Posted July 12th, 2011 at 5:28 pm (UTC-4)
The quote in my title is from the Bulgarian-born artist Christo, who, with his wife Jeanne-Claude, erected 7,500 colorful “gates” draped in billowing saffron-orange fabric in New York City’s Central Park over 16 days in the dead of winter in 2005. Their work was surrealistic, too, as you see: At 341 hectares (843 acres), Central […]
For (Paisano) Pete’s Sake
Posted April 25th, 2011 at 2:55 pm (UTC-4)
Famous structures have come to symbolize many U.S. cities and towns. Just about every American knows San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge as well as the Gateway Arch to the West in St. Louis and the Washington Monument obelisk in the nation’s capital. And wherever you are, I’ll bet you, too, have heard and seen photos […]
Fat Tuesday
Posted March 1st, 2011 at 9:45 am (UTC-4)
Next Tuesday, New Orleans, Louisiana, will officially shut down for the day. It has nothing to do with a budget crisis or, let us hope, any sort of calamity. The occasion is a street party, the biggest in America and one that happens every year. It’s Mardi Gras — “Fat Tuesday,” translated from the French […]
Out of Mothballs
Posted February 10th, 2011 at 12:27 pm (UTC-4)
Almost 13 years ago on a Sunday, I walked into a surreal urban setting that reminded me of one of those science-fiction movie scenes in which everything looks normal but there’s not a human being in sight. There were manicured lawns and old, beautifully kept red-brick buildings, something like a college campus without the students. […]
The (Fill in Here) City
Posted February 2nd, 2011 at 3:36 pm (UTC-4)
After today I will, I think, have the “nickname thing” out of my system. I’ve told you about various state nicknames, such as “The Buckeye State” (Ohio) and “The Volunteer State” (Tennessee). And about the exuberant, often animal-related nicknames that colleges and universities have attached to their sports teams, such as “Wolverines” (University of Michigan) […]
First Beach
Posted January 28th, 2011 at 3:13 pm (UTC-4)
America has a First Family, a First Lady, a First State, the First Man on the Moon . . . and a First Beach. Or more precisely, its first beach resort, which is still going strong. I should pause before identifying it to tell you why in the world I’m talking about beaches when it’s […]
Mum(mer)’s the Word
Posted January 7th, 2011 at 12:18 pm (UTC-4)
No doubt the star of this posting will be Carol’s photographs, so I urge you to hang in to the end to take them all in. She and I spent New Year’s Day in an unlikely place: Philadelphia. Unlikely, because we had long figured that Philly’s cherished New Year’s Mummers Parade would be an earnest, […]
