Bergeson

After seven years in the same house, the longest I have abided in one abode in my adult life, the urge to clean out the corners hit last week.  If you don't move for a while, things start to accumulate.  Things like trinkets. Doo-dads. Gadgets. Cords. Books. Boxes.  And ceramics.  Ceramics...

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training this week. There is hope! Baseball is on its way. I would rather watch the Minnesota Twins, but they train across the continent in Florida. Here in Tucson, the Colorado Rockies play a couple of miles down the street. I don't know...

Concord, Mass., 15 miles to the east of Boston, is a hotbed of American history and literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson lived there, as did Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. The Revolutionary War, at least if you believe the people of Concord, started...

Spent the past week in Boston touring historic sites. The focus of the trip was on the Revolutionary War, which, it seems, fewer and fewer people even bother to study. We should. Not only should we realize the sacrifices made the principled patriots of that era, but we can see in...

After spending a morning packing for a trip, I have discovered the biggest annoyance of modern life: Cords! All of our precious gadgets require cords. Some require two! For this trip, I had to pack a cord for my laptop, another for my iPod, two for my camera, some earphones, and...

As a kid, lying was easy to understand. It was wrong. If you stole the lollipop, you stole the lollipop. If you got caught, you fessed up. Lying about the deed was as bad as the deed itself. In fact, in the childish world of right and wrong, stealing a lollipop was no big deal if...

Often people will ask me, "Why don't you write a column about people who..." You can fill in the blank with any number of annoyances committed by People Who. Last week, somebody brought up People Who steal plants from cemeteries. What kind of person could drive out to a graveyard,...

As a life-long napper, I have become connoisseur of naps. Naps come in different shapes, sizes and depths. All nap types have their place, but some naps are more rewarding than others. I learned the art of napping from my grandfather, an polished napping virtuoso. Just to give you...

It seems odd that Memorial Day, a holiday for remembering the departed, arrives just when our land is teeming with new life. Sky blue eggs in the robin's nest. Sticky lime leaves on the aspen. Lurid green lawns. Bees buzzing in the apple blossoms. Spring is all about youth and newness. Many...

My 96-year-old great Aunt Olive has lived a long and eventful life. As an infant, her father took her to hear Teddy Roosevelt speak -- not because she'd understand what was going on, but just so she could later say she had been in the presence of the famous president. Later, she...

What keeps organizations going year after year after year, long after their original purpose has disappeared, long after the flame has died out, long after anybody stopped caring? What makes people drive dozens of miles to attend boring annual meetings where nothing is decided and...

As snowstorms go, last weekend's was a minor event -- even though it dumped the biggest snowfall of the season on our farm. A few people had a tough time getting home. A few cars hit the ditch. A few events were canceled. What else is new? What's new is that the storm dropped...

The swamp out my front window is waking up. Two nights ago, thousands of frogs started spring choral practice. A week earlier, the red-winged blackbirds returned with their metallic trill, swaying on the tips of the cattails. A pair of great white egrets spent a morning on the...

After years of resistance, I finally sold my soul last week. For years I have been raging against the evil of cell phones. Look what they've done: Years ago, if somebody told a head of cabbage in the supermarket, "Honey I've told you a million times if I've told you once, you...

Last Friday, a little group of us drove to Grand Forks to see Senators Obama and Clinton. We arrived too late. The shuttle driver from the remote parking lot wouldn't take us. The arena was full. While we dithered, a Hillary supporter pulled up in a van. "What if we just want to...