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2020 or Sixes and Sevens

It seems unusually churlish to have named this year after the definition of perfect vision, as it is hard to think of a time when there has been less clarity. In general, people are not very good at uncertainty. They seem to like knowing their children will return to school in September and, after the […]

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by Haven Pell
Haven Pell

When does a challenge become an adventure? Seems like it relates, at least in part, to timing. Challenges feel forward looking, but so can adventures. The two begin to differ after the fact when challenges are no longer challenging but adventures are still adventures.

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2020 or Sixes and Sevens

It seems unusually churlish to have named this year after the definition of perfect vision, as it is hard to think of a time when there has been less clarity. In general, people are not very good at uncertainty. They seem to like knowing their children will return to school in September and, after the […]

Around the World in Fifty Courts The Wilderness Years

The spring and summer of 1974 we’re not very good for my court tennis, but they were excellent for other aspects of my life. I put check marks next to law school and the bar exam, ended my Upper West Side apartment lease and began the next adventure by getting married, moving to Omaha, Nebraska […]

Unpleasant Intrusions Loom but Not Just Yet

The late 1960s are better remembered than the middle of that decade because turmoil resonates more than simmering transition, albeit a transition that was fast coming to a boil. Before the mid 1960s, boys who were viewed to be well educated, thanks to time spent at a handful of New England boarding schools and four […]

It’s Tough to Be Funny on Zoom or Is it More?

I was on a Zoom call the other day with PJ O’Rourke, a political satirist who was a leader of the National Lampoon and is the author of 20 books. “O’Rourke’s original reporting, irreverent humor, and crackerjack writing makes for delectable reading” describes his oeuvre. He has addressed this audience many times before and it […]

Turkey Industry Magazine Calls for an End to Thanksgiving

I bet you would be surprised to read that headline. Most businesses seem to have trade journals that address the interests of industry participants, host conferences and facilitate the exchange of news and ideas. Generally, they attract little notice outside of their niches. How often, for example, do you find yourself wondering about what The […]

Around the World in 50 Courts: Greentree

If you’d like to get an argument going, put the very few people who have tried to play every court tennis court in the world into the same room and set them to matching their achievements. We all have our own ways of counting and these are invariably the ones most favorable to ourselves. As […]

Lockdown Blues if it Really is a Lockdown

Today is the 75th day of lockdown. I have been keeping track in the journal I write every day. The District of Columbia, where I live, will gently reopen tomorrow, which makes me wonder how I will end the daily count. Is a gentle reopening the measure or is there a starker divide between locked […]

What’s Next If We Ever Get Out of Lockdown

Now that we have ascended the Zoom learning curve and perhaps found the result disappointing, let’s skip the obvious first question and move to the second. “What’s next” definitely comes after “when is next” because, at this point, we’d accept pretty much anything other than shelter in place. I’d love to answer the “when” question […]

Skihad BCE: Winnemucca

Throughout the month, the snow had been iffy, but that was about to change. The forecast was for 50 inches of powder in Squaw Valley, an 18-podcast drive from Sun Valley that required an overnight stay. Winnemucca, Nevada is not likely to appear in glossy ski magazines. It shouldn’t. It’s not a ski place. It’s […]

Skihad BCE: The Last Stop, But Who Knew?

In addition to his skills at serializing novels, Charles Dickens is well known for ghostly visitations. Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t invite Jacob Marley or the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future to come and visit him, but the results were salutary. Charles, here is your first ever visitation invitation for a lesson on serializing stories. […]

Skihad BCE: A Week with the Fellas

This is the fourth episode of Skihad BCE. The first is here; the second is here; the third is here and another related story, written well before our lives took a sharp turn into lockdown, is here. Skihad is now two weeks short of the March 15, 2020 divider between CE (Coronavirus Era) and BCE (Before the Coronavirus Era). […]

Skihad BCE: Alta vs. Snowbird

This is the third episode of Skihad BCE. The first is here; the second is here and another related story, written well before our lives took a sharp turn into lockdown, is here. It looks like there are about three more. My divider between CE (Coronavirus Era) and BCE (Before the Coronavirus Era) is March 15, 2020, […]