Category: 2006

  • YOU’VE GOT TO BE TAUGHT

    In 1948, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the unforgettable musical “South Pacific.” It starred Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as lovers. Among the melodic offerings were such things as “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “This Nearly Was Mine.” Slipped into this epiphany was a song called, “You’ve Got to be Taught.” This little song was…

  • COUNTRY SPEAK | MISSING WORDS

    In a previous essay, I commented on missing people. In this case, I will try to comment on a very few missing words from our vocabularies these days. This exercise is called “Country Speak.” I call this essay “Country Speak” because the words that are missing from urban areas are found most often in the…

  • LAGNIAPPE FOR READERS

    A little lagniappe for all my readers: If you were to wander into a diner and order a tuna sandwich, you might be surprised if it is served with some pickles on the side. The pickles are something extra which is the essence of lagniappe. Similarly, if one drives in to a service station to…

  • STAYING THE COURSE

    A week or so ago, the English Prime Minister, Tony Blair, came to Washington to discuss how things were going in the war against Iraq. Blair and Bush appeared after their conference to hold a meeting with the press. None of the major American networks carried the program. It didn’t even appear on the Public…

  • MORE WAR ON TERROR

    On Sunday, November 26, 2006 the United States will have been at war in Iraq for the same length of time that we were involved in World War II. As an observer of human events for the last 80 years and as a veteran of World War II, I believe that it is incumbent upon…

  • IRISH EARWORMS

    This essay is a love story in the Irish tradition. It has nothing to do with horny politicians trying to seduce an intern nor does it have to do with an amorous preacher trying to embed a soprano from the church choir. It has to do with the Irish use of the English language, the…

  • SPIRITUALS

    As I was growing up, one of the absolutely great forms of music was the so-called “Negro spiritual.” In recent years the word “Negro” has become a word that polite people refer to only infrequently. The “Negro” word has evolved into “colored,” “people of color,” “African-American” and other euphemisms. Nonetheless the music that was produced…

  • RITA, MAY I INTRODUCE YOU TO ROLLAND?

    …And Both of You Ought to Get to Know Frances Day A few essays back, I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes and dictated an essay about the most bitter woman I ever knew in my life. That woman was my boss’s secretary. You may recall that she is the one who told me,…

  • A LETTER TO MY READERS AND FRIENDS

    Last December when I wrote the essay “Sing No Sad Songs for This Old Geezer,” it was intended primarily to tell my friends about the onset of blindness. Your responses have been overwhelmingly generous and I am deeply touched. I am not that good and not that courageous. The situation now is very much like…

  • THE THIRD RAIL

    Well boys, the German Pope has stuck both feet in it. Every person who ever lived on a farm where cattle were pastured will recognize the “it” in the previous sentence. George Herbert Walker Bush, our preppy former president, never lived on a farm, but he refers to the “it” as “deep doo doo.” Old…