Family
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Lives of the dead
A couple weekends ago I visited the graves of relatives and ancestors on my father’s side at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. All of them died before I was born, but my Grandma Searls and her sisters often visited there, and I thought, Hey, now that I’m in New York a lot, I should visit these Continue reading
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Remembering Uncle Chris
Yesterday was my Uncle Chris’s 100th birthday. When he passed fifteen years ago, I wrote the following, which I just unearthed from the Old Web. Now seems like a good time to expose it to the world. He was the embodiment of a Good Man, I still miss him, and I’d like his many great-grandkids to know Continue reading
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Frontiers of Typicality
Dear Student Name, Your Remarkable Candidate Application for admission to Uncanny Valley University is already mostly done. Click here to see. We’ve pre-filled lots of stuff to make sure you get a personalized application experience. And, your Remarkable Candidate status also qualifies you to get these Remarkable Advantages: No essay (we’ve written that for you too) Some kind of scholarship Short cut to Continue reading
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A visit to the old ‘hood
A couple weeks ago I took a walk around the historic neighborhood in Fort Lee where my extended family had a home — 2063 Hoyt Avenue — from the turn of the last century into the 1950s. It’s where my parents lived when I was born, and where my aunt and grandmother sat for my sister and Continue reading
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Happy Birthday, Pop.
My father, Allen H. Searls, would have turned 106 today. It’s not inconceivable that he might have lived this long. His mother lived almost to 108, and his little sister died at 101 just last December. But Pop made it to 70, which still isn’t bad. He was, to me at least, the living embodiment of a good man: Continue reading
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Urban originals
It would have been great to visit the Egyptian Spice Market in Istanbul with my old friend Stephen Lewis, whose knowledge that city runs deep and long. But I was just passing through the Old City by chance, waylaid en route from Sydney to Tel Aviv, and Stephen was still in Sofia, which he also Continue reading
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Close to home
Fort Lee has been in the news lately. Seems traffic access to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee was sphinctered for political purposes, at the spot marked “B” on this map here: (This was later the place where “bridgegate” took place.) The spot marked “A” is the site of my first home: 2063 Hoyt Continue reading
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Grace Apgar, 1912-2013
Aunt Grace — my father’s younger sister — died yesterday at her home in Maine. She was 101 years old, and in good health until just a couple days ago. Last month, in fact, she flew to San Diego to visit one of her granddaughters. Grace often said she wanted to live to 108, like Continue reading
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A toast to strong women
Grandma Searls‘ footstone says “1882 – ” and is hardly and overstatement. She died pushing 108 in 1990, and was lucid, loving and strong in all the ways that matter. She was one of four sisters in her family. That’s them, with their dad, on the left. Grandma is the one on the bottom right. Continue reading
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Loving the Alps of Los Angeles
I orient by landmarks. When I was growing up in New Jersey, the skyline of New York raked the eastern sky. To the west were the Watchung “Mountains“: hills roughly half the height of Manhattan’s ranking skyscrapers. But they gave me practice for my favorite indulgence here in Los Angeles: multi-angulating my ass in respect to Continue reading
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Remembering paradise
Mom died ten years ago yesterday, just as I was putting up the post below. I learned a short while later that she was gone. It was a good post then, and still is now. So I thought I’d run it again. — Doc Except for school, I had a happy childhood. That means my Continue reading
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Getting kicks at 66
A year ago I entered the final demographic. So far, so good. @Deanland texted earlier, asking if I had a new affinity with WFAN, the New Yawk sports station that radiates at 660 on what used to be the AM “dial.” Back when range mattered, WFAN was still called WNBC, and its status as a Continue reading
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Remembering Mom
Mom would have turned 100 this week. She got to celebrate her 90th ten years ago, though it seems like yesterday. She died several months later, of a stroke while recovering from a botched gall stone removal procedure. The stroke was preventable, I believe; but I won’t lay blame. Mom lived a long and full Continue reading
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Snow chance
It’s raining here now, in Manhattan. It was snowing earlier, but then came the sleet, and now the rain, and the slush. Here’s what I shot with my phone a few minutes ago, on my way back from the subway: And here’s what this kind of thing looks looks like on Intellicast‘s radar: The red Continue reading
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Remembering Peter Sklar, placeblogging pioneer
This is a hard one to write. Peter Sklar, the founder, editor and chief-everything of Edhat, Santa Barbara’s original onine daily, has died. Peter was the Steve Jobs of placeblogging. Like Steve, he was an original genius and nobody’s fool. He could be prickly and sarcastic, and he did things his way. He was also a Continue reading
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The kontroversial kittehs of Rome
Strays Amid Rome Set Off a Culture Clash says The New York Times. On one side, archaeologists who wish to save ruins from occupation by cats. On the other side, the cats’ lovers, including tourists who marvel more at the abundance of serene kittehs, lounging atop walls and columns than at the historic site itself: Continue reading
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Why we have Silicon Valley
My son remembers what I say better than I do. One example is this: I uttered it in some context while wheezing my way up a slope somewhere in the Great Blue Hill Reservation. Except it wasn’t there. Also I didn’t say that. Exactly. Or alone. He tells me it came up while we were Continue reading
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Bridges covered
My sister and I received a durable lesson in generosity in the summer of 1963, in the heart of Iowa. That was where our family’s 1957 Ford Country Sedan station wagon, towing our Nimrod pop-up camper trailer, broke down. It was on a Sunday morning in late June, heading south from Des Moines on I-35 Continue reading
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Lessons
When our kid started using a computer in the seventh grade, I got him a copy of Mavis Beacon so he’d learn how to touch-type. I didn’t see him using the program, but I did see him typing. So I asked him what was up with that. He said “I looked at it a couple of Continue reading
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Happy Anniversary, Mom and Pop
My parents, Eleanor and Allen Searls, were married 65 years ago today. The wedding was in Grace United Methodist Church, in Minneapolis.* Mom’s family, all descendents of Swedish immigrants to homesteads in Minnesota and North Dakota, were the primary attendees, as I recall being told. Pop’s family was from New Jersey, and that’s where the Continue reading