by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – Our culture is pretty thoroughly saddled with rituals and celebrations that originated in our distant, non-scientific past, when we explained phenomena to be the result of supernatural prompting. I guess maybe they seem cute or quirky, and are thus charming. So we continue to[Read More…]

EAST MONTPELIER – Hagar and I drove into the big rotary at the foot of the Nahant Causeway, trying to judge the volume of traffic on a Sunday noon. The friendly voice of Siri spoke to me in her Irish accent from the dashboard: “At the roundabout, take the first[Read More…]

EAST MONTPELIER – It had been a lovely weekend, courtesy of Martin Luther King Jr.: lots of pleasant conversation and snacks in the two chairs in the office, supper at Julio’s Friday, lunch at the Wayside Saturday, shopping for groceries at the Chopper. Icy cold outside, but snug inside. Bea[Read More…]

EAST MONTPELIER – Clack, clack, clackety, ding, zzzzut, clunk. Clackclack clackety-clack… That onomatopoetic rhythm is tattooed in my memory of the 1970s more clearly than the Vietnam War, the Peanut Farmer President, or even the Beatles. Up in the attic loft there was a man possessed of ideas, a primitive[Read More…]

by Willem Lange  EAST MONTPELIER – The narration, a modern version of the second chapter of Luke, began the old familiar Christmas story. Mary and Joseph shuffled down the church aisle on cue, Mary cuddling a bundle clearly intended to be the baby Jesus, and Joseph strangely empty-handed. The mother[Read More…]

by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – You know you’ve reached the age of mental saturation when, in spite of everything that’ll be happening between now and New Year’s Day, your major concern isn’t whether or not you’ll take the Polar Plunge into the sea to welcome in the new year,[Read More…]

by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – For almost 50 years, during the week before Christmas, I’ve been haunted by a spirit – the ghost of Charles Dickens, who rose from the grinding poverty of his childhood home to become England’s most famous writer. At the peak of his fame, crowds[Read More…]

by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – My father, raised conservative Dutch Reformed and later ordained an Episcopal priest, never would venture onto a computer or the internet, even when I gave him the computer and showed him how. When I asked him why, his answer was a bit evasive, but[Read More…]

by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – My friend, the late Walker Weed of Etna, N.H., was the oldest member of the Geriatric Adventure Society, and easily the most experienced. When he offered an opinion or a pronouncement, I listened. He opined one day that if you ever have had an[Read More…]

by Willem Lange ST. HUBERTS, N.Y. — It was what my grandfather used to call a “Bummelzug day.” A Bummelzug is a local train that stops at every station; and when you’re having that kind of day, there are a million things you have to do before you can get[Read More…]

by Willem Lange I’ve never been to Punxsutawney, Pa. – have, in fact, no desire ever to go there. Besides, as I listen to today’s news, I feel that we’re there, all of us, trapped in the film Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, experiencing the same day, over and over, and feeling[Read More…]