Category Archives: Uncategorized

This was a snoozer in November ’20 and it still is. But it helps me to have an accessible version of my current curriculum vitae, so here it is:

After another delicious dinner of this easy, simple, cheap dish, I decided I had to share it.  I owe it to my brother Nick, who drives the truck he owns for a living.  As I was remarking on the impressive weight loss he’s managed to achieve while the rest of us still struggle with COVIDContinue reading “brother Nick’s truck driver’s chicken”

My dentist no longer uses laughing gas, but none was needed on my visit to his office this morning.   I was there to get a new crown to replace one I’d lost.  The tedium of the injections and grinding with pauses to let the former take effect to make the latter tolerable began to getContinue reading “device”

As the summer of ’81 waned in New Hudson, Ohio, Kathy Clark packed her life into her yellow Nova to head north to Ann Arbor and grad school, closing out the last “free” summer she’d see for several decades.  She was leaving behind her high school teacher’s post at Western Reserve Academy to see whatContinue reading “wifey’s home”

I wrote this shortly after I’d received the sad news that George Frayne IV, (U of M BFA ’66, MFA ’68) – A.K.A. Commander Cody – had passed as of 9/26/21. I never posted it, but now that his life is being celebrated across the country, I think it’s time. Some readers of this blogContinue reading “CC COL”

Forget the title, this is about electric cars. In my part of Michigan, we get our electricity and natural gas from DTE.   While the name suggests a Detroit link, the company is based in Cincinnati and serves 3 states (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky) totaling 13 counties.  The company traces its origins to 1849 as the DetroitContinue reading “DTE”

Sometimes Kathy and I just like hanging out in our loose-fitting robes. Go Blue (Ph.D. ’90)! Go Maroons (M.D. ’79)! Should you wish to sing along The Yellow and the Blue (UofM alma mater) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgpp9FEAhsA University of Chicago Alma Mater  https://youtu.be/YLJSLMXnHCg

Among the items awaiting me in my mailbox upon returning from Phuket was the KingSize catalogue my USPS daily digest warned me about a couple days ago.  I thought it might be a joke but there it was, in all its scarlet and gray glory.  Was KingSize trying to shed the state of Michigan?  I’veContinue reading “a poke in the (Buck) eye”

My dad, Dick Ike, Jr., would have turned 104 tomorrow, August 8th, an age his own father had reached.  But Dad’s colon cancer was higher up and more invasive than Grandpa’s, and he only lived 9 years after diagnosis and resection.  But he died a happy man, as he had lived.  Just as his retirementContinue reading “Happy Birthday, Dad!”

In an old country with a proud history like Ireland’s, you’d expect a lot of that.  This morning’s side trip from Beaufort to Cork brought me to a sterling modern example of this phenomenon.  We set out to hike nearby Tomies Woods, at the edge of Killarney Park.  The trek we’d take took us aContinue reading “respecting tradition”