Tiring and Retiring: In which I remove myself from the workaday world

It’s time. I’ve saved for years. I bought five extra years’ service with the state, bolstering my pension. I don’t have to work in the court system any more. The judicial process is painstaking, and as a citizen I appreciate the serious efforts of the courts to apply the law, to resolve conflicts, to get things right — at the same time, I don’t have to take those pains myself any more.

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Just a Notion, for Two Oceans

 

There’s a vast continent-sized island of plastic debris floating in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the polar bears are drowning in the Arctic for lack of ice floes. I suppose it would be prohibitively expensive, but what if we could fuse a lot of that Pacific debris into plastic floes cast adrift in the Arctic for the desperate bears to clamber up on and catch their breath?

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Dawn View of the City

Every so often I catch the light just right. Just before the sun comes up, it hits the windows of the highrises in San Francisco, and they glow as if molten.

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Friends old and new

One of the unexpected pleasures of this trip to Minnesota was connecting with people I hadn’t seen for years. While that connecting was a catalyst for the trip, it also involved a friend I’ll never see again.

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Elkhorn Slough and diving birds, too

I drove down to Monterey Bay this Saturday to check out  The Elkhorn Slough “Safari.” 

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Edie the Berserker

Science has measured and discussed the positive and negative effects of ions for years. I’ve heard that the ocean shore carries a different ionic charge, which can be energizing for many critters, and as proof  I give you our Edie girl:

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A different pace

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The large and small of spring training

You know how planning a vacation together can be stressful?

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“And I Couldn’t Believe My Luck”

A few months back I wrote about the good life. No, more than the good life, the fantastic life, top of the world, and how it might be enjoyed in Manhattan mid 20th century, by a star having life by the tail, living in tall cotton or deep clover.

That was a joie de vivre forged in talent and brawn, but there’s another so fleeting it barely happened and, as wonderful as life became, the crucial bond wasn’t forged on the musical genius that sustained it but on the most tenuous of connections: a shared sense of humor, and of charm.

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High Cotton and Deep Clover in New York City

Every so often you read or hear a story about someone who has life by the tail. They’re living the dream, life is all beer and skittles. Southerners refer to it as being in high cotton, dairy farmers hoping for rich milk noted when the cows were in deep clover.

I heard once that Mickey Mantle occasionally walked to work, using shoeleather for his commute from midtown Manhattan up to Yankee stadium in the Bronx. I’ve no idea if he did it often or even did it once, but it’s so striking to consider.

Can you imagine how cool it must have been to be Mickey Mantle walking from midtown Manhattan to Yankee stadium some sublime late summer afternoon, on your way to a ballgame as not only a Yankee but as their biggest star?

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