A Wisconsin Top Ten

Last week I was putting together an early draft of a new essay, and I wrote, “In spite of my blind spot when it comes to Clare, I do not think that my daughter is the best thing to ever come out of Wisconsin.” The sentence was to be the lede for a description of the...

2025

I vaguely remember when my second grade teacher told our class that we would live into the 21st Century. That was in 1961, and my classmates and I could not project that far into the future. At age seven, the 21st Century was six more lifetimes away.* Last week I...

From the Chair in My Window

At a recent neighborhood Christmas party, a guy from down the street joked that he worries about me if I am not sitting at my living room window each morning when he heads off for work. Apparently I have become a local fixture, and something’s not quite right if I am...

John Muir’s Desk

Before I get to the main topic of this week’s blog, I want to mention that this is my 53rd blog of 2024. Each Monday I add the previous week’s blog to the archives, and this week I’d reached 52 entries for 2024 and still had another week to go. At first I assumed that...

First Snow

Last week’s blog was “First Ice.” This week’s blog is “First Snow.” I moved to San Francisco the winter of 1981 and immediately took a job at a North Face store. My very first customer was a man who wanted to buy a down Gore-tex jacket. His request confused me,...
Steven Simpson