The View from the Pew
Christmas Day, I sought out my pew at St. Peter’s. An Episcopalian from the cradle, I am into pomp and circumstance.
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Preserving Marshall
I stood in the breakfast cereal aisle at Publix. I fingered a bag of Kodak multi-vitamin, hi-protein granola
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A Ramble in Vermont
We took a break from the autumn heat and flew north to Vermont. The purpose of our trip was to visit our friends Tank and Nelson. They each go by one name, like the Brazilian soccer players, Pele and Renaldo.
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Agency
From the techs, to the floor nurses, to the charge nurse, to the Haitian lady emptying the trash, a single question hung in the air
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Rules of the Road
The wrathful driver was nice-looking, wore a collared shirt. I pondered. Why was he so irate? He was driving a Beemer, obviously financially secure, unless he was late on payments.
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It’s All Greek to Me
My cell phone read 41 degrees. The Fahrenheit reading had been oozing down for the past forty-five minutes.
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Bocelli at the Hockey Rink
With fifteen thousand others, we were at the hockey stadium to hear Andrea Bocelli. I wondered. How many people were both an opera fan and a hockey fan?
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Eighty Feet Apart
Two houses’ front doors are eighty feet apart, the width of a lot line. The sign on the house to the right had the name of the Elephant Party candidate for President; the other, the name of the Donkey Party candidate.
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Leftovers
I pulled open the refrigerator door and looked over the remains of Thanksgiving dinner.
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Riding It Out
I was not thinking about hurricanes back then. I anticipated life in our new home in St. Petersburg’s Old Northeast: warm days under the oaks, visits to Pass-a-Grille beach….
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Grab Your Hat
Tomorrow, at breakfast, reach over and turn off your iPad or close your laptop. Grab the remote; turn off the TV. Forget breaking news
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“On a Scale of One to Five….”
The trickle of “How did we do?” surveys has become a flood, wearing out my delete button.
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Afoot in the Flatirons
Like Brigadoon, Boulder is stuck in time. Citizens are peaceful, wait for the walk light at intersections, and recycle for the good of mother earth.
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Down-Ballot Blues
My Life’s Editor and I went to a political fundraiser last week. It would be easy to write a check and not show up.
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A Walk on Central
She decided to brave a sidewalk route along the shaded sin and debauchery block of Central Avenue, between 2d and 3d Streets.
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Wanted: Sturdy Guide for Old Fly Fisherman
I balanced on the edge of a stream bank … At one time I would have made it down in two bounds.
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“The Play’s the Thing…”
My Life’s Editor and I settled our tushes in plush burgundy orchestra seats at the Asolo Theater.
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In the Company of Guys
My dinner discussion group consists of grizzled veterans mostly retired from the cut and thrust of life. The discussion saunters aimlessly. Plans for a new knee elide into local politics.
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Slow Down, You Move Too Fast
My phone is set to Silence Unknown Callers, discouraging politicians, as well as charities like The Foundation for Healthy Livers. They may be worthy causes, but I just don’t want to experience telephone guilt administered by strangers.
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Safari
The elephant padded implacably towards us on the dirt road. Rafael, our guide, put his finger against his lips, the “Shhh” understood. Our Toyota Land Cruiser, engine running, sat in the middle of the dusty trail.
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Africa by Duffel Bag
“How about an African safari?!” challenged the auctioneer. I smiled, home free. Herself was strictly a first-world enthusiast, favoring toilets that worked, old world charm, and cultures with a romance language.
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Dealing with the Past
For decades, our household had two tenants hanging around rent free: Sarah, my great-great grandmother, and her grandmother, Elizabeth.
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We, the Jury
At the building entrance prospective jurors shuffle through a channel of tapes leading to the security check. Many peer wistfully at their summons to duty form,
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Tennis Anyone?
I chucked out my red leather golf bag, woods and irons, and my snazzy red Etonic golf shoes.
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Keeping Up Appearances
I grew up among Episcopalians and military types. The military is all about appearances. My mother’s father, General “Bagpipes” Magruder, wore a suit and bow tie .
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The Volleyball Player and the Cowboy
I step into the maw of the cavernous Orlando Convention Center and am assaulted by the screaming of at least five hundred teenage girls. The air is peppered with arcing white volleyballs.
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Come Back, Huck Finn
When I was fourteen, boys were abundant on street corners and empty lots. They were shooed out the back door on a summer’s morning and not expected back until supper time.
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“The Doctor Will See You Now….”
I have shoes older than my new primary care doctor. He has a pageboy haircut, like Prince Valiant…
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Election Day
“I’m worried about you,” my sister Peg said. “Are you sure you’ll be safe?” I had just told her I had volunteered to be a poll watcher.
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Get a Job
I envy men who have had a profession, men who always wanted to be an actuary or a toll collector on the New Jersey Turnpike. I was born into a military family. My father, both grandfathers, a grandfather’s brother, my brother, three of my cousins, and a brother-in-law were military officers.
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Being the Big Kahuna
I held the gavel suspended in mid-air. It was my last meeting as Chair of the St. Petersburg Urban Detritus Society (SPUDS). I held fire on gaveling the annual membership meeting to an end
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The Curveball and the Star-Spangled Banner
From the time I waddled out onto the Little League field to settle in behind home plate wearing shin guards, chest protector, and catcher’s mask, I was hooked on baseball
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My Father’s Shoes
In my shoeshine box, they will find: two shine brushes (brown, black); two polish brushes (ditto); three cans of polish (cordovan, brown, black); a bottle of saddle soap; and three shine cloths (one filched from the Woodstock Inn in Vermont and one from the Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville, VA).
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These Boots Are Made For Working
It was the noon hour and at the base of the bridge, in the shadow of the arch, construction men ate their lunches, legs flung out in front, backs against the concrete slab. lunch boxes at their side, empanadas in their hands.
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It’s Not About the Fish
The 7-Eleven door burst open, bell jangling. A scrawny, one-legged, shirtless, bearded man in tattered pants clumped through on his one leg and a crutch. Eyes bulging, he shouted and waved his free arm.
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A Dog’s Diary
Using a Brain-Computer Interface App (BCIA), the Craiglit.life technology department was able to transcribe the personal diary of a Labrador Retriever into the publishing empire’s mainframe computer
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What Would George Say?
Gazing out over the rubble of our elected officialdom, I reflect we have come on hard times manners-wise and civility-wise.
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Can We Talk?
A recent Economist article suggests that American men come up short when it comes to friends, guy friends specifically. American heroes ride solo. Think Gary Cooper in High Noon, Jack Reacher, Spider Man, The Hulk, or Cleatus, the Fox Sports animatronic figure with laser eyeballs.
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Anticipation
From the moment a kindly catfish found its way to the end of my line and sent a tentative tap, tap up through my fishing pole to my six-year-old hands,
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The Couch Chronicles
This is where the foot rubbing mentioned in my last post occurs. Many readers have inquired if they can bring their feet to the couch to get in on the action.
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Unplug and Reboot
Last night My Life’s Editor and I settled into our couch in our TV room to watch Mr. Djokovic play Mr. Zverev in the US Open semi-final.
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Dear Mr. Craig
We admit the sight of a giant pool float hanging off the side of the A220 was not reassuring.
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A Confession
The cover photo on You’ll Need a Guide, available from Amazon for a paltry amount, shows me gleefully displaying a rainbow trout to the camera.
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Another Trip, Another time
I backed My Life’s Editor’s molten orange CRV into a post yesterday in St. Augustine.
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“Downtown, Everything’s waiting for you”
Five years ago, My Life’s Editor and I unloaded half our books and all our brown furniture.
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My Lost Cause
In my youth and early adulthood, I mentally walled off my cherished noble south from slavery and racism.
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Three Men In A Boat
The Everglades National Park is a vast expanse of tannin-tinted water and green mangroves.
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Bingo and Molly
It is a rite of suburban passage that a beginner family, after stocking up on kids, decides to do the dog thing.
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Team Bonefish
Marvin operates from a poling platform mounted on a boat designed for skinny water – a “flats boat.”
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A Guitar and a Fly rod
It had taken me two months to subdue sixteen bars of “Casey Jones” by Mississippi John Hurt.
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A Stick, A Wall, and a Ball
As a suburban kid, I played marbles on dirt. My bag of marbles: cat’s eyes, clayies, steelies, micas, and agates.
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Burgers, Zits and Unrequited Love
I leaned my bike up against the building, walked hesitantly around to the back, and rapped on a screen door
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Shore Lunch
In a galaxy far away, when I was in my 40s, I would fish with my son, my brother, and friends on the Big Piney River in east central Missouri.
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What’s On Your Bookshelf?
What interests My Life’s Editor and me are the bookshelves behind the talking heads. We peer closely at the books,
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Learning at the Feet of the Sensei
Steve, the goateed one from Ohio, and I, the Old Road Peddler, waited on the Maximo Park boat ramp. We were tight, nervous
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With Mallets Toward None
My college classmate Jeff called from California. He was coming to Florida with his wife Diana to compete in a croquet tournament in Venice. We offered to provide a pull-out and relatively clean sheets at Casa Craig for a few nights. When I hung up, I thought “A croquet tournament?” Croquet was something we used…
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Fathers and Sons
My father was the personification of Lt. Col Bull Meecham, crack jet pilot and man’s man, in Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini.”
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Saturday Morning Market
The Saturday Morning Market in St. Pete is where thousands of city folk congregate to shop for produce, buy tchotchkes, and eat.
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The Trout Whisperer
Cashiers, North Carolina is where Floridians go in summer to escape from it all, then find themselves competing for a spaghetti squash at the Farmer’s Market on US 64 with a next-door neighbor from St. Petersburg.
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Oh Say Can I See
I put down my coffee cup, took off my glasses and put my left hand over my left eye. I looked over at My Life’s Editor with my right eye
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Blood and a Lost Shoe
I sat on a gurney in the BayCare “doc-in-a-box” facility on 4th St. N.
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Marshall Craig 