Category Archives: Night Writer

Too old to rock and roll

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I haven’t used my bedside clock-radio as an alarm for a couple of years now, but most days I still wake up with a song in my head. I don’t know why I have words and a tune in my head when I open my eyes. Often it’s a song that we sang in church that week, but sometimes it’s a surprise from the vaults – an unexpected appearance of a song I haven’t heard in 20 years. I did download a bunch of Jethro Tull songs over the weekend, though, so this morning I wasn’t shocked when the first thing through my head was “He was too old to rock and roll, but he was too young to die.”

The very next thing through my head was, “Hey – it’s my birthday!”

I tipped my mental hat to the sense of humor of my internal DJ, then tried to reassemble myself for the shuffle/limp/crick-crack into the bathroom. Time was when “it’s my birthday!” would be the first thing I thought of, and I’d be out of the bed like a skyrocket. Now I’m more like a NASA rocket straining to break free of the earth’s gravity, while dropping parts behind me. I still get there, though.

For all the anticipation I had for my birthdays when I was a kid, there’s not too many that stick out in my memory today. That will happen, I suppose, when there’s been so many of them. There was the party I had when I was in first grade when one of my strapping classmates bodily lifted my mother off of the ground. As I further recall, I think he was shaving by sixth grade and doing time by eighth. That was also the party where one of the girls in attendance threw up on the table during the cake and ice cream.

Another time I had the honor of sharing my birthday with the Tornado Super Outbreak in 1974 that ravaged the midwest. I think that party might have been held in our basement. Later, April 3, 1996 was also the day when Unabomber Ted Kaczynski was arrested in Montana, which explains why he didn’t make it to my party and never called. Perhaps most ingloriously, though, is that I share the same birthdate (day and year) with Hollywood nutjob Alec Baldwin. And I thought my inner DJ had a sense of humor.

Anyway, this morning I made it through my morning toilette without any especially profound thoughts or insights on mortality and went downstairs where my daughters soon joined me for their tributes (see Tiger Lilly’s previous post). The Mall Diva is still especially giddy about giving (and receiving) gifts, but it was nice to note that she has gained more self-control since the time when she was four-years-old and burst into my room with a gaily-wrapped box and a hearty “Happy Birthday, Daddy – it’s a camera!”

Of course, the girls are the two best presents I’ve ever received and are the gifts that keep on giving (and not just with presents). Watching them grow up has been a tremendous return on the years I’ve paid into the process. If I can no longer lift them over my head by their ankles it is only because I’m saving myself for more prodigious feats of strength such as walking them down the aisle or launching them into the world. And I wonder what the musical accompaniment to that will be.

Herb Carneal

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“Some love the sound of the loon or the teal,
but I love the voice of Herb Carneal.”

That’s a snippet from a song I heard Garrison Keillor sing a long time ago. I don’t remember what the song or the context was, but that couplet always stuck with me because it also expressed the pleasure and comfort I took from listening to Herb call a Twins game. There was just something so natural about the way he described the action; you could tell he enjoyed what he was doing, even in the most wretched of seasons – and there were enough of those over the years to have made a lesser man long for laryngitis.

It’s kind of funny, but when I think of his voice now I don’t think of baseball as much as I do night driving on a warm summer’s evening; of settling back in my seat, the windows half open, letting the dark air and the golden tones eddy about me. Baseball is about the only sport I enjoy listening to on the radio. I can barely stand to watch the NBA, let alone listen to it and the college game isn’t much more compelling. Hockey and football have so much going on that, while I’ll listen to a game on radio, it’s only until I can get to a TV, whereupon I’ll dash inside to watch the rest. Many times, however, while on my way home and listening to Herb call a Twins game, I’d sit out in the driveway or garage and wait until the end of the inning before going inside and turning on the set. With Herb there was never any rush.

Herb and former Cardinals announcer Jack Buck were as much of the sound of baseball to me as the crack of the bat, and their style and grace was always a pleasure, and now they are both gone. There are other announcers who are alright, and some who are annoying (it took me awhile to appreciate John Gordon, and I can’t stand Buck’s son, Joe). In recent years I could hear Herb’s voice getting weaker, but it was still a baseball voice and the few innings he’d work each game were like getting the last piece of cake: you knew it was going to be good, but soon gone. Last week when the newspaper had the story that he didn’t feel strong enough to work the Opening Day game, Twins fans knew it wasn’t a good sign. Herb said he hoped his voice would be strong enough to return soon, and even though I read his words in the paper — rather than hearing them — they struck me as having the same note of plucky optimism he’d use when saying “Wait until next year” after another 90-loss season. Like the Twins mantra, he always seemed to know that you can’t take any one loss too hard.

This one, though, is going to be a toughie.

The StarTribune has a collection of some of Herb’s classic calls here.

The end of the war

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No, I haven’t set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, but the Fundamentals in Film class finally completed the Band of Brothers mini-series last week.

There were 10 episodes, plus the documentary “We Stand Alone Together”, in the mostly true-to-life story of E company, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne in World War II. With our bi-weekly schedule it took awhile to get through them all, even with watching two episodes each time. The boys were very excited to begin the series and were generally pretty riveted throughout with lots of questions and commentary. I don’t know yet what impressions it made on them (and I’m fully resigned that I may never know) but I know it will stick with me for a long time.

I debated with myself for some time before introducing the series to the class, and spoke with the fathers a couple of times about it. The language in the series is frequently extreme, and the violence is often sudden and explicit. On the other hand, it was a chance to feature some history lessons, introduce a more realistic and human sense of the “up close and personal” nature of war to a video game generation raised on “Halo” and “Doom”, and to impart some lessons in leadership and grace under pressure.

I dealt with the language issue right up front with the guys, explaining how it became a form of bonding for the soldiers who were undergoing severe hardships together, but even at that the men were aware that it wasn’t appropriate in general society and were careful of their language around women – a distinction commonly disregarded these days. I also reminded the young men that “out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks” – whatever comes out of their mouths communicates a lot more than just the words themselves. Finally, I directed them to pay attention to Dick Winters, the main character in the ensemble cast, and the way he controlled his words (even when wounded) and swore only for effect in getting his men moving again when they froze while out in the open and under fire.

Winters was also an example of leadership – a quiet man of faith, committed to the well-being of his men but also able to order them into harm’s way when needed, but with the tactical skills to keep the men alive as well. While not flashy or self-promoting, he quickly gained the universal respect and admiration of his men and his superior officers and his example was a model for men like Sgt. Carwood Lipton and in stark contrast to the “leadership” of Easy Company’s first CO, Captain Sobel, and to the company’s CO during the siege of Bastogne, Lt. Dike. Lipton’s leadership during the Battle of the Bulge — his focus on the men and the mission — gave the class a lot to talk about after we watched the Bastogne episode (a particularly gory and challenging episode that saw a lot of the men we’d come to know get killed or seriously wounded). That particular chapter also showed how it was possible for a group of men to do more than they thought was possible while under the harshest conditions.

It was also interesting for the class to see just how screwed up so many of the military operations became, from the errors on D-Day that led to so many of the paratroopers being dropped in the wrong place, without much of their equipment and groggy from the air-sickness pills they were ordered to take (for the first time), to the Allied High Command being caught by surprise at the Bulge and the 101st being sent in to Bastogne, again without proper equipment, winter clothing or even enough weapons and ammunition. Despite the almost catastrophic errors and miscalculations, the men on the ground succeeded thanks to their training, their character and the bond between them that allowed them to function as a highly-effective team. The mini-series often made me wonder how today’s media would have focused on the blundering (without acknowledging how massive and complicated the D-Day invasion was or the logistics of maneuvering several hundred thousand men in a short period of time in Belgium) and overlooked the successes.

Today the Battle of the Bulge would be the German equivalent of the Tet Offensive, and though the Viet Cong and the Germans both ultimately lost these battles decisively, the end result was dramatically different. Back then General McAuliffe was celebrated for his bold response of “Nuts!” when the Germans sent their surrender demands to his besieged forces; today he’d be criticized as a blood-thirsty maniac unconcerned about the soldiers he was keeping in harm’s way in the Belgian quagmire.

That’s not to say that Band of Brothers glorified the war. The series did an excellent job of portraying the hardships and sacrifices — and sometimes all-too-human failings and frustrations — of the men of Easy Company and the 101st Airborne. Especially in the later episodes when it was clear that the war was winding down and that the surviving members might just live through it after all, the loss of their friends and the apparent futility of the war weighed heavily on the men and, to some extent, on our film class. While there was little action in the episode where Easy discovers the Landsberg concentration camp (“Why We Fight”), it was one of the most powerful and affecting in the series. Combined with the last episode (“Points”) where Easy takes and occupies Berchtesgaden, these concluding segments did a good job of showing the costs, personally and nationally, of war for even the winners.

After we finished episode 10 and then watched the documentary “We Stand Alone Together” featuring interviews with the real Easy Company survivors (a very moving experience after having come to “know” their actor counterparts over the past few months), it indeed felt to me as if a long war was over. I was left with a deeper appreciation and admiration for what the men had sacrificed and achieved and knew that I would have a hard time measuring up under the same circumstances. I don’t know what the young men of the class got out of it, or even if I or they will be able to measure its affects over the next few weeks, months and years, but I don’t think any of us will be the same.

“Fat Bastard” was Scottish, wasn’t he?

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On the heels of the first anniversary of the Scottish smoking ban, it may not be long before the next ghillie drops. An article in The Scotsman today bemoans the cost of the “obesity epidemic,” including a 16 percent increase in the prescribing of anti-obesity drugs to citizens. The cost of the obesity pills to treat this “epidemic” (watch out, it’s contagious) represents an annual additional cost to the Scottish taxpayer of £500 (about $1,000).

It won’t be long now (if it hasn’t already occurred) that the nannies will be calling for bans on fatty foods as a matter of health and national interest.

This is a problem on two levels in Scotland: one, the nanny-state mentality that holds sway and makes such bans not only conceivable but likely; and two, the fact that healthcare in Scotland is nationalized in the first place, which simultaneously puts the government in charge of extracting the costs from all citizens while also being in position to ration what care is provided and deciding who is “worthy.” And is it any surprise that obesity is increasing when the government stands ready to pass out anti-obesity pills? The pills might be effective but they’re no match for the principle that you get more of whatever you subsidize.

This is also an issue that also points out the challenges ahead for Minnesota as we are on the verge of enacting our own state-wide smoking ban (in public places, for now) and where our current legislature can’t wait for the opportunity to pass single-payer healthcare provisions. (By the way, the population of Scotland is about the same as Minnesota’s; according to 2005 estimates there are 5.09 million people in Scotland and 5.13 million in Minnesota).

The article didn’t expressly call for a ban on selling unhealthy foods, but it’s the next logical step from a system that has, ironically, force-fed its citizens with a never-ending platter of entitlements as if they were so many veal calfs or geese being prepared for foie gras , limiting their movement (freedoms) til they were in a dullard’s stupor unable to resist and fit only to be harvested for their taxes.

Snippets from the article include:

… Spending on anti-obesity drugs rocketed to more than £4 million in Scotland last year as GPs doled out 89,000 prescriptions.

…Spending on the two main anti-obesity drugs rose from £3.55 million in 2004-5 to £4.12 million in 2005-6.

…”Being overweight is a disease, and why shouldn’t these patients get these drugs?” she said.

…The World Health Organisation has described obesity as a “worldwide epidemic”, and it is already thought to cause 9,000 premature deaths a year in the UK and costs the NHS £1 billion annually.

…A recent study by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that the annual cost for the two main drugs, Orlistat and Sibutramine, has hit almost £38 million in the UK, which means that £1 in every £264 spent on NHS drugs is now being used for obesity medication.

Now I am rather robust of frame myself. If it were, in fact, “raining men” as the old song sang, I’d be my own puddle. Of course, armed with the information from the article I now know that I have a disease and that I am a helpless victim of a worldwide epidemic. I’m sure I caught this disease from using a contaminated spoon while eating ice cream, or from one of those people in line next to me at McDonald’s coughing on me. If only someone would do something to help me!

That’s not to diminish the serious health issues of obesity. If I, myself, am to diminish however it should be up to me, not the government. I can eat less, exercise more and even counter-intuitive as it sounds — sleep more and lose weight. Sleeping more is something that I’ve been trying to do, since studies have shown that getting more than seven hours of sleep a night helps your body control its weight. The problem is, I always wake up after six hours (or less) regardless of when I go to bed, no matter how much I’d like to sleep longer.

Maybe someone should pass a law.

[For other accounts on this blog describing Scotland’s infatuation with running people’s lives, go here and here.]

We were young

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Last night after I finished my blog post I decided to do a little channel surfing — but I didn’t get far. My thumb was barely warmed up before I came across FSN re-broadcasting Game 5 of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Twins and the Detroit Tigers. By the time I tuned in the game was in the bottom of the 8th inning but I settled in to watch the exciting conclusion because I’d never seen it before.

Yes, Twins fan that I am, I had missed one of the seminal moments in Twins history; had, in fact, missed all but a few innings of this series. “What, where you out of the country or something?” you might ask. As a matter of fact, the answer is “yes” and “something.” I was honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta with the not-yet Reverend Mother, having gotten married on the same afternoon that the Twins played game three in Detroit (which fortunately caused me to miss the otherwise demoralizing Pat Sheridan homerun off of Jeff Reardon in the 9th).

I knew this team very well, however. I’d been working as a scoreboard operator for the Twins since the Dome opened a few years earlier and had watched this squad come together, working 40-50 games a year and watching most of the others on television (didn’t have a blog to take up my time then). I was the same age as most of the guys on the team and felt a certain identification with them as we came into our own in our respective careers. I could sense there was something coming together with that group, but never anticipated playoffs in the early days of 1987; hence wedding plans were made for October with confidence.

It was spell-binding last night, however, to have those heady days brought back to me on the big screen, to see Rat and Herbie and Puck and Bruno all young again and mighty. To be reminded again of how smooth Gags was in the field and to see Dan Gladden and Steve Lombardozzi on the same field — and to laugh again at the memory of how Gladden would eventually punch Lombo out for being such a putz. Watching Stevie run home with a clinching run in the ninth last night I found myself thinking, “the guy even runs like a jerk.”

I also got a little misty at how natural it seemed to see Kirby at the plate, lashing those practice swings, and to see Joe Niekro on the bench as the camera did a slow and unintentionally nostalgic pan through the dugout: hey, there’s Mark “Country” Davidson, Sal Butera, and Bushie, Baylor and Gene-O, and there’s Al “No-No” Newman (the nickname was one I used whenever Newmie had to come to the plate) and Bert Blyleven when his hair and beard were still orange, watching intensely and, uncharacteristically, not trying to give anyone a hot foot or a shaving cream facial. Finally, the crusty old skipper, Tom Kelly, not looking old and crusty at all back then.

Then there were the shots of the Tigers. My God, did the Twins really beat Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, while Sparky Anderson watched? Did anyone, even Gaetti, look more like a rat than Darrell Evans? And yeah, Sheridan, I saw you, too, you stiff prig with your ridiculous glasses, acting as if you belonged on the same field.

It was a strange sensation watching those two innings. Even though I knew the outcome of the game already there was still a lot of drama — probably because I knew of so many other outcomes still ahead. I also remembered what that time in my life, watching these guys in those seasons leading up to ’87, had meant to me, and I thought about how one of the greatest things that could happen to them was about to happen, just at the time that one of the greatest things that ever happened to me happened. And we were all so young!

Driving in my car, I turn on the radio

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It was a beautiful spring day – temperatures in the 70s, sunny and still too early for bugs. Of course, I was stuck in an office building all day, but once I got out to my car I wantonly rolled down the windows in wild abandon. I kept my hand near the window button, however, because it is March in Minnesota and it could start snowing in five minutes. Not today, though.

That’s not to say that there weren’t white-out conditions, however. I drove home via the University and those crazy kids there couldn’t wait to bare arms, legs and pasty torsos to the thin sunshine. The co-eds had that kind of vulnerable, bedraggled look of a Monarch butterfly just out of the cocoon. A sign of spring, all the same, and I can’t blame them — around here if you get a nice day this early you’ve got to jump on it.

I had in mind to blog about something much darker today, but I’m going to let that notion pass for now. It’s been too nice a day and I don’t really feel like going to that place right now. We’re sure to have rain sometime this week, and maybe I’ll do it then. Driving home today about the only metaphorical cloud in the sky was the fact that I couldn’t seem to find a radio station that wasn’t in the middle of a bank of commercials.

Normally during my evening drive time I bounce between KFAN, The Patriot and KTLK. I’ll listen until they come to a commercial and then my itchy finger moves on down the line. Today, for some reason — perhaps a meteorological one that delivered us an unseasonably warm day but also mysteriously synchronized radio signals — every station was paying bills, and two of them were playing the same commercial. It was like being chased through Dinkytown by Tom Shane. Now I’ve been told that I have a face for radio, but if there’s anyone who does not have a voice for radio it’s Tom Shane. I know it’s hard to hear that, Tom, but you’re my friend (albeit in the diamond business) and I’ve got to level with you. Your voice is scary, and the only way you’d sell me any jewelry is if you cornered me in a dark alley, which by the way, I wouldn’t be surprised to find you in.

Ok, switch to plan D — rather, plan CD — to get some tunes going lest I be seduced into getting my basement waterproofed. I couldn’t remember what the last thing was I had playing in the CD player, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Uh-oh, Tom Waits. What had been perfect musical accompaniment on a cold, rainy night last week seemed jarringly out of place on a soft spring evening. Of course, Tom Waits can be jarring anytime. There was an amusing incongruity, however, in hearing him croak about something being as cold as a gut-shot wolf-bitch with nine sucking pups pulling a number 8 trap up a mountain in a snowstorm with a mouthful of porcupine quills. Now that’s cold. And that’s probably the forecast for next week.

They’re not kilts, they’re aprons

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Scotland is now one year into it’s nation-wide smoking ban, something that I could see Robert the Bruce agreeing to but never William Wallace.

Personally, I’m a lifelong non-smoker. In my youth I considered the economies and relative “coolness” of smoking vs. driving and decided to use that money to put gas in my car. Furthermore, the last few years I haven’t gone to many bars, but when I did I preferred to go to ones that had no-smoking sections. Nevertheless, I enjoyed going to Keegan’s (pre-Minneapolis ban) for Trivia Night even though I knew I’d come home reeking of smoke. It was a trade-off I was willing to make for the socializing. I draw the line at socialism, however, and other people telling a private business how it ought to operate through laws rather than the marketplace. That’s not because the marketplace is any kinder or gentler than the government, but it is a lot more grounded in reality. Not that the marketplace can’t be a cruel master, but at least its focus is on finding ways to entice me to give it money voluntarily while the government is dedicated to finding ways to take more money, preferably while giving me as little say in the process as possible.

Anyway, because of a news thread I’ve been following on a business matter I occasionally come across news stories about the effects of the smoking ban in Scotland (unrelated to my original news search). An article in today’s The Publican, a UK pub-trade publication, takes a look at the results of the past year. It notes that many pubs have been hurt and are even going out of business since the ban went into effect, but that this may not be tied solely to the ban, and that other pubs have not been as affected.

One year on: the Scottish smoking ban
22 March, 2007

Licensees there have faced the new laws with varying success, Roy Beers investigates

Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days into the smoking ban, pubs north of the border are experiencing mixed fortunes.

The ban in Scotland has hit some pubs and clubs even harder than trade pessimists expected, according to the country’s biggest licensee organisation. However, on-trade multiple operators, for example Mitchells & Butlers and Belhaven (now part of Greene King), have reported only minor damage to their Scottish pubs’ drinks sales.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association’s (SLTA) chief executive, Paul Waterson, says independent commissioned research showed overall pub turnover slumped 11 per cent last year, a more serious decline than the organisation’s own original estimate of seven per cent.

He told The Publican a combination of the ban and discount beer offers in supermarkets was driving many pubs to the wall.

He has warned publicans in England that even some of those pubs that “do everything possible” ­- for example enhance food business and provide smoking areas -­ are still certain to lose trade.

In Scotland traditional wet-led community pubs are said to have been hardest hit, along with community-based social clubs. Bingo halls have suffered a wave of closures. Scotland’s growing pub leasing sector is also said to be under particular pressure.

Making the lease unworkable

James Hickman, lessee of Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (S&NPE) McEwans Ale House, in the Newington area of Edinburgh, said last week that the ban had been “the major factor in making the lease unworkable” ­ as he prepared to wind up his business with major debts. “Besides the ban driving people away, you see people passing all the time with carryouts from cheap supermarket deals -­ they’re the students who would be our customers, but who can now drink cheaply as well as smoke freely in their flats,” he added.

S&NPE operations and sales director for Scotland, Ken McGown, said: “In addition to the impact of the smoking ban, for which we have sympathy with the lessee, there were a number of other factors which ultimately led to him deciding to move on.”

Loyal customers

“Some (S&NPE) pubs you would imagine would suffer have actually borne up due to a loyal customer base, and pubs with good food offers are reporting a positive response to the smoking ban,” said McGown.

In Fife, some community-based registered social clubs have shut, while others have seen annual takings ­ and charity donations slashed. Davie Nelson of the Coal Industry Social Work Organisation in Glenrothes, said:

“We’re losing £1,000 per week, and two other clubs have closed ­- some pubs are in trouble too. Local charities will be getting only around half the usual amounts because of the ban ­ and a local wheelchair users’ club has been forced to close for lack of money.” In addition to falling sales, licensees around the country have been dogged by complaints about noise and litter created by outdoor smokers: a North-East councillor last year tried unsuccessfully to ban smoking at outdoor tables.

…

“We were promised a massive influx of customers when smoking was banned -­ and it simply hasn’t happened.”

Read the whole thing.

Tra-la, it’s spring!

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What a pleasure to step outside this morning to get the newspaper and instead of getting a nose full of frozen hair I had it filled with the smell of warm, moist earth and impending rain. It won’t be long now before I can take down the Christmas lights, pull up the orange driveway stakes, or find a place in the back yard to bury the cat (wrapped and boxed in our deep-freeze). I don’t think it’s going to take me four hours to finish that task.

The snow is almost gone, revealing all the goodies the city plows deposited in my front yard and the tire tracks of the yahoos who drove across my lawn over the winter. It’s good to see the snow go, but I’m a little disappointed. Our sump-pump started acting up last year and I had gone most of the winter without replacing it because there wasn’t a pressing need. When the 16″ of snow fell a few weeks ago, followed by the 40+ degree temperatures, I knew procrastination was no longer an option. I pulled up the old pump and went to Menard’s for a new one and other necessary parts (only two trips!) and got it hooked up, then sat back waiting for the deluge. Nothing! The ground has absorbed everything and nothing has made it into the drain tiles. Oh well, at least the job is done.

Without that to worry about (for the time being, anyway) I can focus on the Twins’ preparations for the upcoming season. The team looks a lot more promising this year than last year at this time, what with the League MVP, Cy Young Winner and Batting Champ all on the roster. Now the biggest concerns are who will be the back-up infielder and whether desperate veteran pitching acquisitions Ramon Ortiz and/or Sidney Ponson can fill spots in the rotation allowing our host of promising but young pitchers an opportunity to season a little longer.

It strikes me as a dubious proposition; Ortiz reportedly has the ability to focus like a shotgun when the going gets tough and the portly Ponson has a reputation for bizarre and aggressive off-field behavior. This has been attributed to excessive drinking, but supposedly that’s no longer a concern because Sid is limiting himself to just a little wine with dinner. Uh-huh. I expect to see a report any day now that Ponson has eaten a bat-boy with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Twins management is hopeful that he’ll work out, of course, saying they expect that Carlos Silva’s work ethic would be a positive influence on him. This is like saying Paris Hilton could be a good influence on Britney Spears.

Oh well, it may be spring, but it’s early in the spring when things still look a little gritty and messy. Soon the grass will be green, the flowers will be out, the sump pump will be humming along and Opening Day will be here.

Funnies…

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The reason we continue to get the Strib at home is because we all read the comics. I read every strip, even the ones I don’t like because it’s easier to read them than skip over them. A strip that I do like is “Get Fuzzy,” and one that I like sometimes is “Stone Soup.” The other day after reading these I said outloud, “If I lived in a house with Bucky Kat from ‘Get Fuzzy’ and Holly from ‘Stone Soup,’ at least one of them would be in a bag down by the river.”

One of the three women of the house said she kind of liked “Stone Soup.”

I said, “If I lived with all those women it would drive me nuts for sure!”

Wa-a-i-i-it a minute…

The good retire young

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Another of my “Night Lights” blogs has pulled the plug as Port McClellan has gone dark after two years and two months. I never realized that the Port was senior to my own blog by only a month, but I enjoyed the excellent commentary, clarity and insights. Given these gifts, my presumption and hope is that the blogger, Michael Brandon McClellan, has merely found bigger fish to fry and has turned his considerable talents toward something more remunerative or life-advancing.

Michael and I were “introduced” by another blog on my roll, Portia Rediscovered, that has also been dormant but has promised to return from hiatus in the near future. Also on hiatus now is LaShawn Barber’s Corner, and Suburban Blight is as good as gone (new babies are hard on blogging), while The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns are still crazy, but a lot less frequent.

And so it goes, old friends move on, new friends arrive. There has been some darn fine writing and/or analyses lately over at Scottish Right and Uncorrelated and I’ve linked Away With Words so much lately that if I do it again I’ll probably be accused of stalking (you can feel free to sneak over there). The Llama Butchers are as prolific as ever, even if exclamation marks sometimes outnumber the words in a few posts. I’ve also become enchanted with the adventures of the ex-pat Kelleys, marvelously chronicled over at Half a World Away. There’s a book in there, trying to come out.

The way things go in the blogosphere you should get over and enjoy these blogs while you can.