Widening the horizon

Katalpa or Popsicle, both begin as piece of wood

“What’s past is prologue” —Shakespeare

I have a five-foot stick in my front yard.

My friend Rod, who gave it to me, is sure it’s a katalpa tree. My son Joseph, ever the optimist, hopes it’s a Popsicle.

Education as transformation

Lessons right outside the window

I admit to ambivalence about pigeons.

I’m not talking doves. I’m not talking birds bred for beauty or trained for tasks. I’m talking about garden variety, gray pigeons. Not coy, but carp.

On the one hand, they are dirty of feather and dim of mind and deserving of the epithet “rats with wings.” On the other, I remember as a boy awaking to the cooing of a couple nesting in our eaves, and the sound still brings me peace.