Saturday I headed down the coast. My traveling companion and better half, Miss Mary, was prepping for her third Tri for a Cure on Sunday. I was on my own.
I enjoy driving down coastal U.S. Route 1 towards places like Thomaston, Rockland, and even Camden, my final destination. Given that it was mid-July, and tourist season, I thought the traffic would be heavier than it was. I wasn’t complaining. Continue reading
The George Zimmerman verdict denotes a nation at a crossroads. Maybe we’ve already crossed some kind of line of demarcation. Post-racial America? Maybe if you’re a Beltway elite you think that. For those of us keeping score elsewhere, I contend we’re not at all.
While the Zimmerman trial garnered the lion’s share of coverage via the MSM, other news stories continued to trickle out.
Rolling Stone magazine, once the quintessential rock rag, featured Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its recent cover. Predictably, the binary, black/white moralists were outraged, claiming that Rolling Stone “glamorized” Tsarnaev, giving him the “rock star” treatment. If you actually read the article, a nuanced, well-written piece by Janet Reitman, you might come away with the idea, like I did that circumstances and ideological persuasion can change people, turning docile, well-liked young men into cold-blooded killers. Continue reading
31 years is a long time. In terms of marriage, it’s a big deal.
We became a couple when we were both 17. A lot of water’s passed under that bridge since 1978. We’ve both changed, grown, matured and the great thing is that instead of pushing us apart, it’s brought us closer than ever.
You’re my best friend, Mary.
Happy 31!!!
Happy Anniversary!!
Freedom may be the most indeterminate word in the postmodern American vernacular. Freedom, freedom, freedom—everyone talking about freedom. It’s almost a fetish for some. What is freedom? Is it merely the absence of the unpleasant, and if we had the freedom we’re always pining for, would our lives suddenly take on a new luster and enhanced quality? Continue reading
The Moxie Boy and Moxie Boy-in-training.
Today’s the start of a three-day Moxie weekend. I know I’m supposed to be blogging about Moxie, but sometimes, I think I’ve written just about all I want to about Moxie. Maybe that’s why this year, I’ve toned down my usual Moxie blogging quota.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate Moxie’s history, and all that goes along with this distinctly different soft drink that’s been around since 1884 because I do. The two books, the signings, the interviews I was asked to do, and the Tee Vee appearances are “all good,” as they say. It’s just that my interests and things I want to write about are much broader than one product, even a product as unique as Moxie. Continue reading
Moxie math and keeping the stories straight.
Moxie is a state of mind, or so I’ve been told numerous times. Apparently, it also has its own distinctly different system of computation. How else could this be the Moxie Festival’s 31st year, if 2008 was its 25th, or silver anniversary?
History is important to me and by extension, the history of Moxie is something I’ve paid particular attention to especially since 2008 when I wrote my first Moxie book, but really, since 2004, when I first signed on to provide PR and marketing support for the Moxie Committee that summer and the following year, too. Continue reading
I drove through Lisbon Falls over the weekend. One week out from the town’s crowning celebration, the place looked like a ghost town. Save for a couple of banners strung up over Route 196, Lisbon Falls looked nothing like a place where 20,000+ people will flock to in order to celebrate a distinctly different New England soft drink called Moxie.
Moxie’s been on my mind the past few weeks as it often is during July, when Lisbon Falls again assumes its place as the epicenter of the Moxie universe for one weekend. Then, it will go back to being a community in obvious decline, much like it has for the past 30 years that Moxie’s been connected to the place. Continue reading
Today is the 4th of July. It’s a Thursday, normally a work day, but there is no work today for the JBE, mainly by choice. Given that tomorrow is Friday, I imagine many people will extend the holiday and make it the summer’s first long weekend.
Viewed as a day to detach from the 24/7 nature of the 21st century workplace, I’ll enjoy today. I’ll spend it with some family and extended family, near a nice body of water, and there’ll be good food, some drink, and we’ll enjoy one another’s company. Continue reading
Tumbling, tumbleweeds.
Where there is no vision, the people perish…
People and places without a plan for the future—a vision—are doomed to failure. Equally worse in my opinion is a plan that takes you in the wrong direction.
I grew up in a community that at one time was a vibrant little place. Main Street had a number of places where you could shop, buy ice cream, pick up auto supplies; there was a barber shop (there were actually two, at one time), a hair salon, and several department stores. All of that’s just a memory that people rehash ad nauseum on Facebook these days. There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on, too. Rarely do they look behind the memories and wonder what happened to what was once Lisbon Falls. Continue reading