Opinion
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A clean, well shaven face
Coming through the airport in Lisbon, my stuff has gone into the metal detector and I’m trying to keep an eye on my worn leather wallet, now out of view, riding on a push conveyor in a grey … more
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The bathhouses
I have spent months studying and traveling to the ruins of the fortified hilltop villages of the vanished Celtiberians. One of the most interesting features of their culture and of life in their … more
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The Romans are coming!
Let’s say you were one of those Celts living in a Castro in a stone house, maybe built by your grandfather and your great uncle a couple hundred years before the Common Era, say 2,500 years … more
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Living in the Iron Age
It’s not that long ago, the Iron Age. Humans are among the youngest species on the planet. Aside from some butterflies, goatsbeard plants, and domesticated animals and plants, we are the … more
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Citania de Briteiros, an Iron Age stone village
With the help of my Portuguese friends, I was able to rediscover a fantastic piece of history, at least fantastic in the eyes of an aging stone mason, once a history major. Citania de Briteiros … more
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Diary of a stonemason
It’s not all drudgery and stone dust and swinging a hammer. For a quality stonemason it’s also planning, observation and research. I’ve been planning a little trip of this … more
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The case against humanity, continued
My friend Teddie and his wife Joan are just back from Vietnam. Whenever he returns from their travels, he has a stack of these newspapers, and he reads my columns right through. Teddie was a college … more
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The case against humanity
Are you like me? When riding down the road and I see a piece of woodland newly clearcut, or dozers and heavy earth moving equipment playing in the soil where corn grew, or alfalfa, I go, “What … more
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The further case for humanity
I may have boxed myself into a corner. The “Case against humanity” will just have to wait. I promised it for this week and loyal readers have said they are waiting with bated breath, but … more
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The case for humanity
Do you ever think how we got here as humans? Do you realize that within the history of things, we just arrived, that we humans are brand new to the universe? Every month we discover a tidbit more … more
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What’s in the bird seed?
I know it is raining. What else is new? Rain with heavy white flakes like pieces of white bread falling; the ground is white, but barely so. Under the sheet of snow is mud. The mud season now runs … more
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On the playgrounds of irrecoverable youth
On the way to the playground there was a ditch. A country kid could have as much fun in a ditch as on a playground, sometimes even more. The ditch was just about as deep as we were tall and the sides … more
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Waiting for the milk truck
The first day of the storm as a kid on a dairy farm you didn’t have to do much, just watch the snow come down, play a board of Monopoly or the card game War, but the second day, well, the milk … more
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Looking out the window
If it were just me, I’d leave it all right where it lies. I’ve already (I say already, but look at that, it’s after 10) shoveled a path from the back door to the birdfeeder because … more
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From, Dick’s Book of Prophecy, page 2024
I’m a little shocked to find page 2023 missing from Dick’s Book of Prophecy. All I can find is page 2022. A review of those prophecies reveals, if we include those which still have a … more
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Options for the new Town Board regarding the Community Garden
Recently, there has been a lot of trash talk about the Town of Montgomery Community Garden. There have been unfounded allegations, overwrought discussions, and, in my view, actions taken by town … more
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Diary of a stonemason: the big push home
Working in an attic usually exposes some treachery and caution is advised. Building the chimney for the Rumford fireplace through the attic space was hellish in that I couldn’t stand up fully … more
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On the roof and in the sun
Most people have not been on a roof. Not in their life. To quote the Gatekeeper of Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz, “Not no way, no how!” As kids we all climbed trees in the big … more
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Living the dream in a field of garlic
TJ had a dream. He often spoke of it. The two of us held long conversations about the dream. In the dream he was planting garlic, lots of garlic, rows and rows of garlic, thousands, tens of thousands … more
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My travels in the Middle East as a young man
Dispirited by my lack of nerve on the throbbing train, yet unwilling to end my sojourn entirely, the next day, I dug some traveler’s checks out of my belt-pack and entered a travel agency not … more
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