Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Broken Shoelaces

      Just when your shoes are nice and broken in, the laces seem to wear thin and break.  Granted, the same forces that break in your shoes are also working on the weakest link in your shoes, but it has always seemed a design flaw that could be fixed.

      Shoelaces are not a sexy topic, but they’re highly relevant at critical moments, like when I’m rushing to a meeting and quickly slipping on my shoes to dash out of the hotel room and BAM! a shoe lace goes.  Emergency splicing and cursing ensue, followed by a visit to a store for some lesser shoe laces that never feel as special as the originals.  Many love affairs with well worn shoes have gone south for the lack of decent replacement laces.

      A good pair of shoes takes you to faraway places; hiking the coast of Portugal or walking La Ramblas in Barcelona, or to dance floors at your niece’s wedding reception, or to quiet walks of reflection with your aging dog.  I’ve come to appreciate a great pair of shoes as I appreciate a great tool in my toolbox.  I don’t buy a lot of shoes but the ones I buy get a lot of use.  And they do the job time and time again.  But time and use wear out each and the laces are the canary in the coal mine for shoes.  I’d like to think that an old pair of shoes is like Willy Nelson’s worn out guitar full of holes but still making beautiful music, but in reality an old pair of shoes can only take you so far.  At least with guitar strings you replace one with another just as good.  Not so with replacement shoe laces; they almost always are found lacking.  And while we may get a replacement set of laces or two, usually that first set of laces marks the beginning of the end for shoes.

      So consider the humble shoelace.  Designed to tightly integrate your shoe to your foot.  An excuse to stop and observe for spies around the world.  Source of many a middle school prank and inadvertent fall.  There when you need them until the day when they announce they’ve had enough.

    • Tomatoes, Chicken Shit and Marcus Aurelius

      “…. Leaves that the wind. Drives earthward; such are the generations of men.”
                                                                                         – Marcus Aurelius (quoting Homer)

      “Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away.”
                                                                                        – Homer, The Iliad with the original quote

      We’re in the prime of growing season now and the tomato plants that I grew from seed are over knee high.  I’ve tried a couple of things this year that I haven’t done previously.  First, growing from seed instead of just buying plants at a local nursery.  I did that just because I wanted to do something “summer” in the middle of what seemed like an endless “winter”.  And second, I switched to chicken manure instead of composted cow manure.  This is a nod to my grandfather, who was known to gush about the benefits of chicken manure for growing kick ass tomatoes.  So far that seems to be bearing out.  Chicken shit is a derogatory term, but the real stuff packs a punch; pungent, powerful and efficient (a little goes a long way).

      The more I garden, the more I recognize the seasons for what they are.  And the longer I live, the more I see the similarities between our lives and the seasons.  There’s nothing revolutionary in this thought process, just refer to Homer and Marcus Aurelius and you see that countless generations of humans have thought the same thing.  This is our season, make the most of it.  Don’t fear the end, embrace the now.  I don’t view this as fatalistic, but pragmatic.  Believe me I’m in it for the long haul but know the deck of cards doesn’t always play out in your favor.

      A couple of seasons ago I had a problem with groundhogs eating half of my tomatoes and leaving the rest to rot in the sun.  Apparently they’d rather sample than finish the fruit.  Lovely habit.  Around the same time I had a nice batch of blueberries ripening in the sun.  The birds picked every last one of them before they showed a tint of blue.  Lesson learned.  Last year I planted pole beans to fill in around a clematis vine I had growing on a trellis.  The rabbits ate them all to the ground before they’d even reached a foot tall.  You just never know what fate brings your way, but I’ve learned to take measures to protect the fruits of my labor.  Don’t go through life trusting blindly that everything will be just fine.  Fence in your fruits and vegetables, change your passwords and lock your doors; trust but verify.

      “Life is short.  That’s all there is to say.  Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.  Unrestrained moderation.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Our growing season is pretty short, but it’s long enough to grow decent tomatoes.  Provide plenty of sunlight, nourish and give them a drink now and then, protect them from those who would harm them and if you’re lucky you end up with beautiful, ripe tomatoes later in the season.  It’s a basic formula for gardening and raising children, and it works well for how we maintain ourselves along the way too.  The last step of course is to savor the things you produce, the good fortune that comes your way, and the season that you’re in.

    • Father’s Day Reflections

      When I think about Father’s Day I think about the Father’s Day I spent spreading crushed stone as a base for our brick patio on a hot and humid day a dozen years ago.  Spreading crushed stone with a rake and shovel is soul-crushing work, and I was miserable.  At moments like that I usually try to push harder to just get it done, but looking around that day I realized that I had a long way to go.  No end in sight.  The Bobcat I rented couldn’t do what needed to be done, I had to do it.  Thoughts ran through my head about hiring someone to finish the job.  Throw money at the problem and have it go away.  Go have a drink and relax on the deck instead.  But we pushed through those feelings and eventually finished the work.  And for the last twelve years we’ve enjoyed countless birthday parties, fire pit conversations and casual strolls on that walk and patio and look back and laugh at that “low point” in our lives.

      Like every father I’ll remember those moments when my kids were born forever.  The marathon exhaustion of Ian being born combined with the mystery and newness of bringing a child into this world.  The surprising and relative ease with which Emily introduced herself to the world (spoken from a father’s point of view).  Those moments were milestones but just the start.  Fatherhood is the grind that comes afterwards.  The day-to-day commitment and sacrifices you make for your family.  Being a father means showing up and doing the work.  Maybe thats why I think of that particular day when I think of Father’s Day.

      I think that’s the magic in It’s a Wonderful Life.  Most parents can relate to it.  George Bailey sacrifices his own wishes and desires for his family and the town he lives in.  The knocks keep coming but ultimately he figures out that the things that kept saying “not yet” to him when he was just about to realize his dreams were the things that made his life worthwhile.  That’s being a father.  Sure I haven’t checked off a lot of items on the bucket list just yet, but I wouldn’t trade the time with my kids.

      I have a few fathers in my life.  My dad and step-father have both been central in my development and in the way I look at the world.  I inherited my sarcasm and self-depreciation from my father, but also my love of family and willingness to sacrifice like George Bailey for the family.  After raising four children my dad fostered and raised six more kids.  He never complains about the struggle, he just pushes through.  Being the 8th of 16 kids meant my dad was as middle child as you get.  He taught me to appreciate the little things and to be patient with others.  He’s better at that than I am.

      My step-father has his own kids but made us a central part of his life.  He sacrificed a lot in doing so.  He’s more Harry Bailey; flying off aircraft carriers, athletic, traveling the world, a knowing gleam in his eye and quick with a great story.  And there for you when it counts.  Taking a walk in the woods with him was a Masters-level education.  My love of adventure, gardening and willingness to jump right into it comes from him.  And rum.  He set me down the path with rum.  Not just the drink but the process of making the drink and when and how to drink it.  That’s a post for another day.

      My father-in-law is the third father in my immediate circle.  He’s the ultimate cheerleader for his kids and grandchildren.  He knows everyone in the Merrimack Valley.  He tells stories about basketball games from 30 years ago like they were yesterday.  Kris says he never missed a game or track meet she was in growing up.  While I can’t be at every game like him I’ve tried to be there as much as I can for my kids’ milestone events.

      Now I’ve got adult children.  My youngest is the age my mother was when she had me.  But being a dad doesn’t stop just because my kids are largely independent.  I expect the next twenty years will be filled with both milestone moments and knock you to your knees challenges.  I’m hoping for more of the former.

    • Bluebirds

      Bluebirds

      I have a pair of bluebirds nesting in my backyard.  This isn’t an accident – I’d decided earlier this year to put up both a feeder and a birdhouse to give them a place to eat and to nest without competition from other birds.  I spent a few minutes outside sitting quietly in between the feeder and the nest.  Eventually the male made an appearance, first at the feeder, then at the nest.  He’d likely been waiting in a tree somewhere to see what I was all about before he got back to the business of bringing worms and nest material to the female.  I’m sure there’s a great filter that I didn’t use on these pictures, but these represent the colors pretty well.

       

       

       

      While most of the other bird feeders were put away for the season, I’m sticking with the bluebird feeder.  I like the flash of brilliant blue out of the corner of my eye.  I’ve had similar success attracting hummingbirds, cardinals, finches and other birds to the yard.

      There’s a law of attraction principal at work here I’m sure.  A “build it and they will come” allegory.  Whatever.  I like to fill the yard with color and motion, and to be a good neighbor.  The reward is the occasional glimpse into the lives of other creatures who co-habitate with us in this space.

    • Windshield Indicators

      Here in the northeast, there are a few things that mark the change from early to late spring.  Many tend to show up in decorative patterns on my windshield as I drive around the northeast or park my car outside for any length of time.  Bugs and pollen are the two leading indicators that late spring is upon us.

      I drive a white car.  At least it used to be white.  Now its faded tennis ball green.  I just had my car washed yesterday.  Not because of the pollen, but for the bugs.  Last week I was in Upstate New York.  There are few places on earth where mass quantities of bugs meet their maker like I-90 in New York.  Wiper fluid barely makes a dent in the spatter marks on the windshield.  No, these glue-like guts require elbow grease and a heavy duty gas station squeegee to remove the last remains of the unfortunate bug that found my windshield.  It’s a sad tale, really.  This bug waited all winter to come out for the big spring bug fling.  Things were going well, hope was springing and…  thwack!  Darkness.

      When I was ten years old I had a similar date with a windshield.  Running across the street I thought of nothing but the bottle I was chasing in the stream (don’t ask how the bottle got in the stream).  When it went under the bridge I dashed across the street to meet it on the other side.  Well, I dashed part way across the street.  Until I met a lovely couple who were coming back from the grocery store, talking about the latest episode of Solid Gold or CHIPS when my right leg connected with their bumper and I cartwheeled headfirst into their windshield.  I can still see the shocked expression on the face of the woman in the passenger seat.  I hope they didn’t buy ice cream that trip because it must have melted in the trunk while we sorted things out.  By we I mean everyone else.  I took the opportunity to assess the gravel on the side of the road until the ambulance arrived for me.

      So I’ve had experience with windshields.  Not the catastrophic bug explosion kind, but not far from it.   Thankfully he was trying hard to stop, and my leg bore the brunt of the impact instead of my head.  But if you’re wondering just what the heck is wrong with me, well, now you know; I identify with bugs.

      The other indicator of spring is this pollen.  Today it’s birch and maple gumming up my sinuses and coating everything in that lovely yellow-green.  In a few weeks it’ll be pine, which dramatically releases from the trees in a giant green cloud that drifts across the landscape looking for a point of entry into your nose and throat.  Spring has a distinct chain of events:  Pollen, sneezing, antihistamine, nodding off, caffeine, bathroom.  So I blame pollen for having to go to the bathroom more this spring.

      This is the price of spring in the northeast.  Sure, you survived winter and mud season.  But Mother Nature isn’t done with you just yet.  Still, we have it better than the bugs.

    • In Search of Mark Twain

      Growing up on Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, I have an affinity for Mark Twain.  As a kid I always thought of him as a Mississippi River guy.  No wonder given his most memorable characters and the settings for his greatest work.  But Mark Twain moved from Missouri to Hartford, Connecticut and spent summers at his wife Olivia’s family farm in Elmira, New York.  These are the places where he wrote most of his novels.

      Both places have developed and changed since Mark Twain’s death in 1910.  The Hartford neighborhood beyond the block on Farmington Avenue is grittier and more urban, while Elmira beyond Quarry Farm has grown more industrial.  Mark would surely look around in wonder at both.  I have a lot to say about this guy.  More than one blog post possibly can contain.

      I visited Elmira a couple of weeks ago to visit Mark Twain’s study and grave site.  I was envious when I visited his study in Hartford, but seeing the octagonal study with it’s fireplace made me positively jealous.  It once was perched on a hill at Quarry Farm overlooking Elmira and the river below.  Since 1953 it’s been at Elmira College, where it’s open to the public.  Mark Twain viewed it as a place away from distraction where he could focus on his writing.  In Hartford he would chat with friends and neighbors, or play pool in his study there.  In Elmira he could draw inspiration from the views and simply write.

      On the day I visited it was raining and I found myself alone looking in the windows of the study.  I made a point of checking the door knob just to see if it was open, but also imagining Mark Twain grabbing this same door knob on his way in to write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I’d had a similar feeling walking up the stairs in his home in Hartford, sliding my hand up the railing, which was one of the only things you were allowed to touch there.  I wonder if the door knob is original, it certainly looked like it.

      I’ve written before that I like to chase ghosts.  Not the poltergeist kind, but the living history kind.  Visiting Hartford and Elmira brought me a little bit closer to Mark Twain.  And gave me a little inspiration.  I’m not sure how long I’m going to live in the house I’m in now, but I think I’m going to build myself a study.  Perhaps not as ornate as Mark Twain’s, but something that gets me out of the house and looking at the trees out back.  Maybe I have a novel in me, or maybe I just use it as a base of operations in my current job, but either way I think of it as a way to be a little more like Mark Twain.  That’s not such a bad goal.

    • The Beer Run

      The last twenty years has seen an explosion in micro brewing.  There was a time when I talked about starting a brewery myself, and sometimes I wonder what might have been.  Some of the breweries from the late 1990’s have come and gone, others sold out to the mass market brewers, and a few have stood their ground and grown organically.

      As a lover of good beer, I’ve been known to make a side trip or two in search of a great brewery.  A trip to Halifax brings with it an obligatory stop at Alexander Keiths.  A trip to St John’s demands a visit to Quidi Vidi brewery.  Breweries are popping up everywhere now and it makes drinking local easier than ever.

      No trip stirs the beer lover’s imagination like a trip to Vermont.  Some of the best beers in the world are brewed in Vermont.  According to Beer Advocate’s rankings, The Alchemist, Lawson’s and Hill Farmstead consistently rank in the top tier of brewers.  There’s something in the water up there in Vermont.

      Yesterday I found myself with extra time in Burlington, Vermont.  My last meeting cancelled on me and I recalled a beer fridge at home that needed a refresh.  So I went to a local beer store I’ve been known to check in with on occasion and purchased some Sip of Sunshine and Focal Banger.  Two worthy beers for sure.  But I was out of Heady Topper and wasn’t sure when I’d be back in Vermont again, so I planned a side trip on my drive home that would take me to Stowe for a visit to The Alchemist.  This is a route I know well and I was able to secure my designated share of Heady Topper, along with a four-pack of Holy Cow.

      Beer purchases complete, I plugged my home address into Waze and backed out of my space for the trip back to I-89.  And then it hit me.  I’ve done this drive a dozen or more times.  Every time I say to myself that I need to visit Hill Farmstead.  I’ve had some of their beers before, but always felt the side trip to Greensboro was tough to justify.  Today was feeling like one of those days too.  I’d picked up my favorite Vermont beers already, why get more?  Maybe just plug the address into Waze and see how much time it would add?  Sure, what’s the harm of that?  What’s this – it will only add a little more than an hour to the trip?  That’s not so bad!  Let’s do it!

      I thought of that as I drove down Vermont’s route 15, turned northward onto route 16 and watched my cellular signal fade from 3 to 2 to 1 to no bars.  Waze kept me on track anyway, but boy this place is out there.  But that’s where the adventure comes in.  While driving down Hardwick Road, I came across a monument that marked the Bayley-Hazen Military Road, built during the Revolutionary War for troop movement towards Quebec.  Sadly I didn’t take a picture of it, which means I clearly have to return to it another time.

      If you ever want to see what some of the areas near Boston looked like before they were built up, visit this part of Vermont.  There’s nothing but farms, woods and general stores that time forgot.  As I drove closer to Hill Farmstead, it became clear to me that brewing beer was the best thing that’s happened in this area in a long time.  Great beer brings beer tourism, as people make the pilgrimage to the brewery, buy beer and maybe stop at a few of the other businesses in the area while they’re here.  It’s an economic boon for an area that otherwise relied on dairy, maple syrup and livestock.

      As I got closer to Hill Farmstead, the roads got progressively narrower, and finally the pavement itself ended.  Great reminder that April is the beginning of mud season.  Did I mention that it was snowing lightly too?  Did I mention I was wearing business attire and dress shoes?  Did I mention that there was nobody else around?  This was my view of Jaffin Flats Road as I drove closer to Hill Road.

      I finally arrived at Hill Farmstead and glanced around.  Bit of snow on the driveway but a few cars parked there put me at ease.  Walking up to the building, I was crushed to see a sign saying they were closed.  Damn, I hadn’t checked that on their web site.  This was Tuesday and the sign said they’re only open Wednesday through Saturday.  Damn.  Long way to go for nothing.  As I was cursing myself for not checking the schedule first a guy walked out of the building with a keg over his shoulder.  I joked about not checking the schedule before I drove out here and he clued me in that there were people inside who might still sell me beer.  It turns out Tuesdays are for locals only, and I was feeling a bit local myself, even if I wasn’t dressed that way.  The bartender and locals were gracious with me, gave me a few pointers on the extensive beer menu and sold me a couple of growlers full of liquid gold.

      Not all beers are created equal.  I generally curse the artificial scarcity that some brewers inflict on their beer-loving public.  But supply and demand dictates that some beers are harder to get than others.  The Alchemist makes some outstanding beer, but they’re invested heavily in the hype with a shiny new tasting room and gift items for sale.  Hill Farmstead is charmingly authentic, dictated in no small part by how far off the beaten path they are.  Both are worth the pilgrimage.  Maybe just not Sunday through Tuesday, and perhaps not during mud season.

       

    • Ice Out

      The changing of the seasons is well underway in the northeast.  While the calendar says spring, Mother Nature decides when it’s really upon us.  In New Hampshire spring is marked by Ice Out; the time when the ice on Lake Winnipesaukee has melted enough that the Mount Washington can sail to all of her ports of call on the lake.  This is determined when one designated guy, currently Dave Emerson, flies over the lake and gives it his blessing.
      In 2017 Ice Out was on April 17th.  The year before it was on March 18th.  Looking at the dates it seems like the average is late April over the last 131 years.  Honestly, it’s a big deal if you’re on the lake, but for the rest of us its check box indicating another winter has passed.  I live in Southern New Hampshire, where the local ponds thaw out a little faster than Lake Winnipesaukee does.  A walk around town over the weekend showed that we’re getting close.
      Back when I rowed, melt off got us out of the weight room and erg room and onto the water.  It was a huge milestone after a long winter.  Being on the Merrimack in college, the melt off meant a swollen river.  The coxswain and coach had to keep a sharp eye out for floating debris.  I recall a few bumps as submerged logs were detected a bit too late.
      They say back in the early days of our country that people would walk across or skate up the river.  That seems insane now.  You never know what the current on a river does to the thickness of the ice, and nowadays you just don’t seem to have that kind of sustained deep freeze that would build up the ice to those levels.
      Climate change is happening, no matter what the fake news crowd says.  Facts don’t lie.  As much as I embrace spring and the chance to be on the water again soon, I wonder what kind of planet we’re leaving for our grandchildren.

    • Clusters

      I read a great book called Geography of Genius that focuses on the tendency of communities of like-minded people to form and thrive, often changing the course of history.  Essentially people feed off each other, and are inspired by the geniuses around them to do more in their own lives.  Rome, Athens, Vienna, Edinburgh and other places are covered in the book.

      It got me thinking about the clusters of geniuses in the northeast.  Maybe we didn’t have Beethoven, Mozart and Freud running around Boston as Vienna had, but we sure had Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Nathanial Hawthorne roaming around Concord, Massachusetts at roughly the same time, and all are buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

      Down in New York in another Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, you have the titans of industry Carnegie, Rockefeller, Chrysler all clustered in their final resting place after building empires just down the river from Tarrytown.  The New York Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is where Washington Irving, writer of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is buried.

      In Boston, you can visit the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and other notable figures from the Revolutionary War at the Granary Burying Grounds.  They fed off each other in life, building on each other’s ideas, one-upping each other.  In death, they’re still neighbors.

      Down in Hartford, Connecticut you had Mark Twain living right next door to Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Talk about a literary one-two punch.  While the neighborhood has changed significantly, becoming grittier, the homes of these two literary giants remain much as they were when they lived there.  I’ve toured the Twain house, and will carve out time for Stowe another time.

      As the weather gets warmer, I’m going to spend a little more time visiting the homes of notable people.  Walking around the homes of Robert Frost and Mark Twain reinforce that they were just regular people with extraordinary talent and the grit necessary to produce.  Visiting their graves reminds you that their time was brief, and so too is ours.

    • Blackbirds

      They’re back.  The rebel bike gang of the skies have come back to New Hampshire.  Where I once filled my bird feeders once or twice a week, I have to fill them daily when these swarms of Red Winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles come to town.  They swarm the feeders and you can almost watch them empty in moments.  There’s no taking your fair share and moving on with these thugs – it’s all or nothing.

      I’ve read up on changing up the feed, putting chicken wire around the feeders, or buying new feeders that they don’t like to go to.  But I’m not spending money or time on that.  With a snow storm coming in tonight, I’m not taking down the feeders either.  I’m going to fill them up and let them run out – quickly mind you, but unnaturally natural.  Maybe the desirable birds will get their fill too, maybe not.  But sometimes you need to let nature decide.  The feeders come down in a month.  I’ll continue to feed the bluebirds, which has been a pleasant success in the yard.  Maybe even the finches, depending on how quickly they blow through the thistle.  But the cardinals, jays and other birds are going to have to live off the land once the snow melts.  For now it’s ever bird for itself.