Rough Beasts

I write in my sleep. It’s hardly restful. Since I mostly remember what I write, I’m never quite sure if I’m really asleep. Recently, I’ve been haunted by the nocturnal… Read More

The Spirit of Toys

In the early 50s, I remember sitting in my PJs under a spruce Christmas tree. I’m opening a pile of presents from my mother. These are the presents my mother never… Read More

I Once was lost and now am found….

Any honest priest who knows his altar boys will tell you they’re prey to mortal sin, especially as they pass through puberty and their fervid imaginations evoke that which they… Read More

Jobs in Our Town

I’m generally suspicious of prognosticators and gurus, whether they’re predicting the end of books or the end of the world. I don’t worry about things ending, nor do I fear… Read More

Jolly Olde England

On our occasional visits to England, we’ve taken up renting Landmark Trust properties, which are considerably less expensive than hotels, especially when friends and family join in. We usually rent… Read More

New Grandfather….

There are many events in our lives that forge us as human beings, but in general, childhood play, early work, and exposure to death are among the most important. As… Read More

UVM Quarterly Essay: Apppreciation of Exeter Professor George Bennett

BILL SCHUBART ’68 Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence. On the strength of a sonnet I had written at Exeter, I… Read More

A Winter Elegy

Just as most progress is incremental, so too are our losses. We rarely see what we’re losing until it’s gone. We may see a dying butternut tree without knowing of… Read More

Talk to me…..

When I was a cub scout in Morrisville in 1953, one of my merit badge projects was to learn Morse code. Another was talking into orange juice cans connected by… Read More

Ah, Mother

It’s time to think about Mother again. And then will come Father’s Day.  For many of us, it’s bittersweet to revisit our mothers and fathers, either in person or in… Read More

Dike Blair and his Vermont Book Shop

I learned with sadness this week that my former employer, Dike Blair, had died. I had visited him on his 90th birthday several months earlier at his home in Middlebury… Read More

Progress and Change

I’m having breakfast with a friend who has just returned from yet another country where he routinely explains to presidents and kings how to establish functioning telecommunications networks, or to… Read More