Eyes screwed shut, holding my nose, and jumping off a cliff. I've never even been able to jump off a diving board without panicking in midair and belly-flopping painfully into the water, and yet that first sentence is how I have described several sudden moves I've made over the years. An inveterate tree-climber as a child(see earlier posts), I'm not particularly afraid of heights, but that rush of air past my body reminds me, much too late, that I'm actually terrified of falling.

Which is probably why I've gotten a little more cautious over the years. How cautious, remains to be seen. Read more about Dangerous Liasons

In April of 2003 I was looking for an analogy to explain why the Iraqi people weren't out in the streets hurling rosebuds at our troops: Read more about Remember Iraq?

There is a big maple tree in my back garden. Four foot-thick trunks rise from a large single trunk, with many smaller branches arcing from them. From these smaller branches, most no more than an inch or two or three in diameter, spring a myriad of twigs. Tiny lacy twigs that fill the winter sky like a spider web.

Looking up at that bare-ribbed umbrella of a tree one January morning, I had to ask myself, "Where does it keep all those leaves?" Read more about Where Does It Keep the Leaves?

A long time ago - why does it seem like only yesterday? - I rode west on the back of a Harley Sportster. We broke down for eight days in Pierre, South Dakota. A Sportster is not the motorcycle to take cross country. But we did what we could with what we had. Read more about Dangerous

Hauling out old journal entries. Here's one from 1979. One of the loves of my life and I had just moved to Seattle: Read more about The Stoner Diaries, I

I generally take Sundays off, but it's Mother's Day. Sorting through old files recently, I came across a letter I wrote to my son, Christopher, back in 1991, on his 25th birthday in June. I'll take tomorrow off. Today I'm remembering again.

Dear Chris: Read more about Mother's Day Memoirs

I became a birder years and years back, working at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. As a secretary in the Public Relations office, I came to know many of the scientists - anthropologists, biologists, geologists - who worked away in tiny cubicles tucked under the eaves of the Field. My special favorite of all of them was Dr. Emmet R. Blake, Curator of Birds. Read more about Birding

I love trains. I used to ride the Wabash from Chicago's Union Station to my parent's home in Decatur (Decatuh, Decatuh, Soybean Capitol of the World!) Illinois. Read more about Ridin' That Train

April 23. St. George's Day. You know, St. George the Dragon Slayer? Patron Saint of England? Although, when I look him up, I find that he is originally a Roman soldier in the guard of Diocletian. And isn't a Roman soldier named George something straight out of Monty Python? Read more about Merry Georgemas!

Picture a critter of some kind - probably a racoon - that you might meet along the road. Put that critter on a birthday card, and imagine it as you read along.

This is from another of those yellowed pieces of paper found in an old file on which I scribbled the text before copying it onto the card. I'm throwing the paper away, but I have to keep the story.