September 11 Reflection Twenty years later, my memories of September 11 are like a slideshow: Walking down Lexington Avenue in Manhattan and noticing the bluest of skies and the sun reflecting off the Chrysler Building; on the Brooklyn-bound 4, looking up from my newspaper when we didn’t stop at Fulton…

This 4th of July, in the slice of America that I saw, We The People got back to basics. Early in the morning from southeastern Louisiana, banjo player Don Vappie read the Declaration of Independence aloud during his Coffee on the Porch hang. WWOZ in New Orleans laced the Declaration…

To forest bathe, shinrin-yoku, I ride my bike to the old cemetery, locking it up with my helmet by the gatehouse. I begin walking, following the streets named after trees, Linden to Sycamore to White Oak. I go off-road to paths chosen by the degree of shade they provide. I…

In any normal year, Don Vappie, a New Orleans band leader and renowned banjo player, would have gone on tour to promote his then newly released album, The Blue Book of Storyville. As we all know by now, 2020 was anything but a normal year. So, a year ago, on…