These pieces were not written by the late British poet, Ken Smith (1938-2003), nor the other Ken Smiths who make bass guitars, study marine biology, sell cars, teach card counting, paint war scenes in oils, guide bear hunters in Idaho, teach forest management, study immunology, do war reporting, sell real estate, photograph nature, teach cryptology, provide legal counsel to the gay and lesbian community, realign the spines of athletes, listen for seismic faults in the Sierra Nevadas, operate a 4-axis milling machine, work for sustainable development in Alberta, play blackjack, or criticize Junk English. Nor were the pieces written by the Ken Smith who is “the Elvis Costello of Landscape Architecture” nor the one who serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives nor the one who hit a home run for the Atlanta Braves in 1983. I only wish.
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A Talent for Happiness
The last few times I’ve driven into Chicago I’ve been lucky with the traffic, but you know how it goes on the Dan Ryan Expressway – on a bad day, you can spend an hour between any two mile markers, watching your knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. This week, on my way back…
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Farewell, Olympians
It’s almost time to extinguish the giant flame, and shoo away the crowds, and fold up the Spiderman suits, and shelve the endless highlight clips, and get on with our lives. We’ll do without the Winter Olympics for four years, and then another generation of super athletes and referees will stand before the world and…
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The Con Man
I was nineteen when I first encountered a con man. The greenhouse where I worked usually hired single guys like me, youngsters without any plans who could get by on a dime or two more than minimum wage. But one day the boss brought in a white-haired fellow named George. He was not much taller…
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Turtle Lamps and Other Gifts
Like thousands of the other Michiana residents, I took my chances in the commercial canyons of Grape Road this week. Of course the traffic was terrible — by local standards, anyway — but I found a couple of presents for my wife. First I bought her — well, I can’t really tell you, in case…
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Santa’s Helicopter
When I was a kid, Santa Claus flew over our house in a helicopter every year on the morning after Thanksgiving. My brothers and I might be running pass patterns in the front yard when we’d hear the thudding of the rotors. Then we’d see the fishbowl of Santa’s two-seat helicopter moving quickly south over…
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Watching the Firefighters
I took my daughters to the neighborhood grade school last Thursday for the annual book fair and chili supper. Later, in the gymnasium, a team of South Bend firefighters told us about fire safety and about their work. This turned out to be the highlight of the evening. There were six firefighters, three in the…
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Wick
I have found that having children enlarges a person’s vocabulary. For example, I learned the word wick when April, my wife, came across it in a British children’s book she was reading our daughters last summer. The garden was wick in the spring, the book said, so Grace, who is 6, asked, “What’s wick mean?”…