Posts Tagged ‘Travel’
ACK
The Nantucket Municipal Airport is straight out of TV’s “Wings,” all faded paint and gray clapboard. In fact, I’m pretty sure I spotted Thomas Haden Church behind the Cape Air counter. The place is unhurried, even as Labor Day Weekend stragglers head back to Hyannis, Boston, and New York. Long-faced travellers in ACK t-shirts, island-logo’d…
Read MoreThirty-Five Wishes
I have looked forward to celebrating my 35th birthday in Nantucket for well over a year. I imagined a hand-picked group of my closest, oldest, most gregarious, and strongest friends sitting around a blazing beach fire, full from a three course feast of lobster, potatoes, corn on the cob, all washed down with numerous pints…
Read MoreCome Together
My mother met Mister Rogers on the beach behind her rental cottage. She was sitting in an old beach chair reading. Mister Rogers was taking his afternoon swim in Madaket Bay. The year after he died, I decided to preserve his memory (and entice my brother to bring his family to Nantucket the following summer)…
Read MoreThe Grand Prize
As a seven-year-old growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, summer vacation was comprised of a week-long fishing trip to northern Minnesota. The drive to Lake Vermillion seemed eternal. Dad stared stoically ahead, piloting our Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser. Mom would crack the window, exhaling long ribbons Benson & Hedges smoke. Chris and I struggled over an…
Read MoreLong Ride Home
Kentucky straight bourbon is not to be trifled with. And yet, here I am, trifling. 15-year-old, 107 proof Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve is aged in “deep-charred heavy oak” barrels in Frankfurt, Kentucky. It is “untouched by human hands.” It is “unhurried by time.” And it is caustic stuff. Joseph and I sprinted to the…
Read More60B
The gray turned to mist turned to drizzle turned to rain as I drove into Elizabethtown. My colleagues mock me for my affection towards Cameron Crowe. None of them share my appreciation of his forthcoming film, “Elizabethtown.” The film (which I previewed with my colleagues in the Paramount screening room two weeks ago) follows Drew…
Read MoreSummer’s Gone
I step out of the cottage into the sand. The sky grows light in the east. I can still make out the pale white halo of the Milky Way overhead. Orion has yet to dip below the horizon. The air is cool. A breeze blows out of the west. It is cool and dry. It…
Read MoreMeeting Katrina
She’s here. And she’s feisty. The sliding glass door in Hyatt #1226 is rattling. Wind is gusting from the west at upwards of 75 miles an hour. Rain is blowing in gray-streaked vertical sheets. Palm trees are stretching and swaying. Power is out in nearly half a million homes already. And Katrina’s just barely arrived.…
Read MoreInto Miami
While I have complete confidence in the durability of the American Airlines Arena — the basement of which I am currently writing you from — in the face of the descending tropical storm, of the red carpet, white tents and fresh sod just outside the door… well, I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s that time…
Read MoreDo It Again (And Again)
As far as my mother is concerned, I am finally a bona fide success. The Nadas are midway through the second set of their third night at the Iowa State Fair. The Anderson Erickson Amphitheater is jam-packed. Josh Davis and I are pacing backstage, sharing a water to sober up. He’s fiddling with his hair.…
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