ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

  • On Editions of Thoreau

    When I reread poets, I like to reread the same volume I first read. I like to see my old notes and the lines I underlined 10, 20, 30, 40+ years ago, and to add new marks and notes. I do the same when I read the Bible. I have an old New Oxford RSV… Read more

  • PUBLIC LIBRARIES: The Last, Best Bastion of True Democracy

    I write this as I am sitting in Ames, Iowa, at the Ames Public Library. It is Pride Day here in Ames, and the library seems to be its operational headquarters. Outside along the street and down the adjacent intersecting downtown streets, there are many booths, a big stage, and everywhere you look, people in… Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT FRIDAY: John Adams on Democracy

    “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” -John Adams Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: excerpt from “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” by Hugh MacDiarmid

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on November 12, 2011. At the end of the Victorian era, nationalistic literary movements sprang up in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Irish movement and its writers are, of course, well known. But the same kind of… Read more

  • NBA Players I Saw Play in Person

    I was 20 years old when I saw my first NBA game in person, a Chicago Bulls game in 1981. The one Hall of Famer on that team was Artis Gilmore. Looking back now at that season, I can see that UNLV alum Reggie Theus had a great year with them and was an NBA… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Arthur Conan Doyle

    IIn my reading life, I have never been far away from Sherlock Holmes. I often and routinely re-read Dr. Watson’s wonderful accounts of the Great Detective’s cases. My habit over the decades has been to regularly return to Dr. Watson’s narratives, so lovingly collected by the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The world owes an… Read more

  • MUSIC MONDAY: The Outlaws

    Here is a Monday-morning Classic from a team of Classics., Waylon, Willie, Chris, and Johnny. Enjoy! Read more

  • Following the Association

    I have mentioned here before that I prefer regular season baseball to playoff baseball. It largely comes down to the fact that I prefer the daily routine and ritual of following a team, a sport, across a 162-game series, to the high-pressure game-by-game pressure cooker of the playoffs. A baseball regular season is a narrative… Read more

  • Poems in my Pocket

    Years ago I worked in a middle-school Media Center. Each year, the English teachers would declare a day as, “Poem in Your Pocket Day.” On that day staff and students were encouraged to carry around in their pockets, a favorite poem to share others. It began for me a habit of always having some of… Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT: POPE FRANCIS

    “Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples.” ~Pope Francis Read more