Here in the heat of July, I’ve decided to give the staff at More to Come the rest of the summer off. Yep — all the writers, editors, photographers, graphic designers, and those amazing headline writers — every last one of them will get almost seven weeks off with pay. Wow! What a boss!*

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Seriously, this seems like a good time for a break. I’m getting tired of considering all the draws being made on the U.S. Strategic Stupid Reserve, and there doesn’t seem to be any letup in sight. There will be plenty of material, unfortunately, on this topic after Labor Day. Also, there are some other projects calling for my focus, including that long-promised gap year book.

So this is it until the Tuesday after Labor Day (8 September for the international readers). Well, this is it unless the feds in the unmarked vehicles and camouflaged uniforms come and lock me up, then all bets are off.

Should you want to take this time and explore some of the things you might have missed on the blog, here are favorites from 2020 that I can recommend.

• Places and perspectives — my take on Confederate statues (June)
• I’m gonna make you laugh until you cry: R.I.P. John Prine — a personal appreciation for one of the great songwriters of a generation, lost much too early to COVID-19 (April)
• Struggling with separation — thoughts learned during my gap year that may help in a time of quarantine (April)
• Nine books for a Spring without baseball — a book for each inning (April)
• A stunning portrait — if you can stream the wonderful film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I highly recommend you do so (March)
• Remembrance, not regret — thoughts on reaching 65 years of age (March)
• Tribalism and the abandonment of democracy — what the Houston Astros cheating scandal in baseball tells us about the country’s move away from democracy (February)
• The work still before us — reflections over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (January)

And then a couple of oldies-but-goodies that just seem appropriate in the middle of our COVID-19 dumpster fire:

• Kindness — written after I announced my retirement and was reminded how good it feels to be on the receiving end of kindness (January 2019)
• History as an antidote to folly — as we struggle to keep our democracy, thoughts on how we got to this point and what we can do to fight back (November 2017)

If these don’t interest you, perhaps you’ll like to see the top 10 posts from the blog in terms of reader views. Or simply feel free to rummage around in the archives. In any event, have a great rest of the summer.

See you in September.

More to come…

DJB

*If you are new to this blog and wonder what the heck all this is about, well there is no staff. Just DJB. And there’s no pay. I do it just for the joy of writing and sharing thoughts with a small community of readers.

Image of pier from Pixabay.