Pop up your Nimrod
“There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson I grew up in a small Southern town where nobody knew …
Burn those jeans
“A lot of disappointed people have been left standing on the street corner waiting for the bus marked Perfection.” – Donald Kennedy Since leaving Freedom High School on Independence Boulevard with its (subtle) school colors of red, white, and blue and its aptly named football team (The Patriots, of course), …
Hand one another along
“Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley.” Ralph Waldo Emerson If you read last week’s 37days, you’ll know that my older daughter is at summer camp for almost 6 weeks. And if last summer …
Stand on your own rock
“The map is not the territory.” – Alfred Korzbyski This week we took our older daughter to summer camp where she will spend the next five and a half weeks rollicking in the woods, riding horses, swimming, hiking and climbing, making friendship bracelets, kayaking, and not writing home. She …
Roll on the floor
"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." – Alan Kay (American computer scientist and researcher) My daughter Emma and I watched a show on Animal Planet last Saturday that made me laugh. Then it made me think. And then it made me realize I had laughed because I could identify with …
Find your saxophone
"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it." –Joseph Campbell If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la. What can …
Stop at every lemonade stand
“When I give, I give myself.” –Walt Whitman Quiet bouquets Leaving West End Bakery on Friday, having eaten quite possibly the best strawberry scone ever baked in the history of the universe with real, big slices of sweet strawberry tucked throughout it and I want another one right now, I …
Always rent the (red) convertible
“Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” Cecil Beaton (1859-1941) French philosopher Red Convertible #1 When gun-wielding snipers were busy terrorizing Washington, D.C. in October 2002, my …
Dance in your car
“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb While driving downtown last Wednesday, I was pondering the epistemological problems of social cognition and constructivism, the origins of values in transcendent functions, and Kantian categorical imperatives. Okay. Well. Maybe it was Johnny Depp …
Live an irresistible obituary
“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” –Anne Sexton I read obituaries. I’ve read them for years. And sometimes I’m rewarded with a gem of a life’s story, or a spectacular turn of phrase: “He had a God-given talent for operating heavy machinery” …
