What Maine Does

  We've only been at our new digs in Stockton Springs, Maine for a week or so but already we've become enchanted with the Downeast life where mighty Penobscot Bay meets the Penobscot River as it winds its way on up to Bangor. (pronounced Bang-gore, not Bang-gah in case you were wondering) The eagles pictured above (mom and adolescent I believe) were photographed from our deck one gray morning a few days ago. Here's the thing: I have been obsessed with being able to view and photograph eagles in the wild for a million years. The closest I ever came was the sight of a large sooty seagull at Nantasket Beach in Hull, MA in 1963. It had a white head. Ironically, Nan and I had planned to travel to Alaska's inner passage on a small ship cruise this past June but Nan's mild case of Covid knocked us off the tour. The sight of hundreds of eagles and a chance to spend some time with good friends were the primary motivations for the trip. Our friends saw the eagles. We saw Covi...

  Little by little, with the certainty of the tides, bits and pieces of my childhood are being chipped away, leaving me with bittersweet memories in their stead. Bill Russell was the most recent of my childhood heroes to pass. Sam, KC, Heinsohn, Sharman, Ramsey, Jungle Jim Loscutoff, the remarkable Havlicek, Johnny Most, and Red all went earlier.  Thankfully, Cooz and Satch are still with us. If you didn't have the good fortune to have been born in Boston in 1947, then you probably were not listening to Celtics games on the radio as a 10-year-old in 1957.  God, what you missed!  Because of a commitment to the U.S. Olympic team competing in Melbourne that year, Russell didn't join the Celtics until December. He was unimpressive in his first few games, scoring 5 or 6 points a game. But Red knew what he had in Russell. It's why he persuaded St. Louis to trade Russell to the Celtics for Easy Ed Macauley, an established star and St. Louis native, and promising rookie Clif...