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Librarian on the run

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As the son and brother of librarians, I felt drawn in a strange sort of way to a book that features a brainy PhD candidate who suddenly leaves her treasured job at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago to enter the federal witness protection program (or WITSEC). I’m pretty sure that neither my mother nor sister ever lived a life remotely like that of the librarian known through much of this work as Cam Baker. However, I can’t be totally sure . . . as this book is all about people who are not what they seem to be.*

It’s Not Even Past (2025) by Anna Scotti is a brilliantly conceived set of murder mysteries involving the librarian originally known as Lori Yarborough. Lori moves through several aliases, multiple locations across the U.S., and a variety of rather menial jobs in order to stay a step ahead of her ruthless ex and his cartel henchmen. In each place our protagonist has an uncanny ability to find herself in the midst of trouble and murder; her ingenuity in solving those crimes inevitably forces her to move on, often to a new city with a new WITSEC-provided identity. Nine of the eleven chapters were originally published as short stories in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine where they received wide critical acclaim. In this wonderfully crafted work those original stories are book-ended with two new pieces, the first to help set up Lori/Cam’s saga and then the final one which adds a coda to this part of her life after the years have so fundamentally changed this once naive librarian.

In a thoughtful online post from earlier this year, Scotti writes of the origin of Lori/Cam and how the librarian’s character developed over time. She set a fictional murder mystery amongst the “vital, vibrant senior folk” in her parents’ assisted living facility, not realizing that she “would fall in love with the brainy, erudite librarian at the center of the story.” She did, however, and thus this brilliant series was born.

Scotti’s writing is spare in style but it easily brings the reader along to see how Cam will find the truth about the murder at hand. Ultimately it also leads us to fall in love with this constantly evolving librarian. One story element that is present from the beginning of the series is this bibliophile’s love of literature. The quotations that pop into Cam’s mind—and, often at inopportune moments, out of her mouth—are delicious morsels in this feast. In fact, I had wondered if the one from which the book takes its title was the quote well known to historians and lovers of Southern literature alike.

It was, indeed.

Here’s the full quote, from William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Anna Scotti has created a character and a book that is sure to delight fans of murder mysteries and many others who simply relish a well-told story . . . or, perhaps, have a librarian in the family and have wondered about their secret lives.

More to come . . .

DJB

*The note about my mom and sister is clearly written with tongue firmly planted in cheek, just in case you were wondering.

One of my favorite tote bags, for obvious reasons to those in the know. I could envision Lori Yarborough with one of these; however, Cam Baker would not be caught dead carrying this tote bag around town!

My years of reading dangerously

As I have explained before, I didn’t begin reading murder mysteries until I retired and the pandemic hit. Since then I’ve tried to make up for lost time, always including several from the genre as part of my intention to read “five books per month.”

Here’s an up-to-date list by year with links to my reviews. A couple are more historical fiction than traditional murder mysteries, but I’ve included them here since somebody dies along the way. You can also find the full list with links in the Reading Dangerously (AKA Murder Mysteries) category of MORE TO COME.

2022

2023

2024

2025 (through June)

Photo of a mysterious street by Adrien Brunat on Unsplash

Musical lineages

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One of the joys of being a fan of roots music is that while young artists expand the boundaries of the genre they also continue to celebrate their musical lineages across multiple generations.

Sometimes the “older generation” (i.e., the one that I now belong to) joins them in the fun.

In the midst of this summer’s festival season several writers, fans, and online music sites have helped me recall the great musicians I’ve had the privilege to see and hear over more than fifty years of following this music. I thought it would be fun to take a few songs as examples and see some of the “roots” of today’s roots musicians. I’ll begin with a real-time collaboration between generations where the young star also demonstrates how she has drawn inspiration from the genre’s trailblazers.

NOTE: These semi-regular Saturday Soundtrack posts are designed to break out of the more serious posts on other days of the week. Here I focus on musical events, musicians and bands that catch my ear. They won’t be to everyone’s tastes . . . in fact my wife says she doesn’t read them at all! So you have my permission to skip over these if you are so inclined, but you may miss something that grabs your heart. Or tickles your funny bone. Or not. 

White Freightliner Blues: Townes to NGR to Molly & Tommy

I’ve written several times about the great Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel (here) who is my age (ahem), and the young bluegrass superstar and flatpicker Molly Tuttle (here, here, and here) who was born in 1993 a few months after my children. Even though from different generations, Emmanuel and Tuttle came together on Tommy’s 2024 album Accomplice Two to record the Townes Van Zandt tune White Freightliner Blues, which is now a feature of Tuttle’s live performances.

The song, of course, has a history. Van Zandt was an iconic Texas singer-songwriter who influenced a whole generation of roots musicians. White Freightliner Blues was first heard in 1977 on his Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas album. While one can hear the composition’s bones in this recording, it does not have the pulsating drive that later bluegrass musicians provided to this “heading down the road” classic.

The band that really drove White Freightliner in a way that has now been followed by Tuttle and others was New Grass Revival, the progressive bluegrass band active in the 1970s and 80s. White Freightliner was released on 1983’s Live album when the group featured its most dynamic lineup: leader and founder Sam Bush, bassist and lead vocalist John Cowan, guitarist and vocalist Pat Flynn, and banjo wizard Béla Fleck. It became a staple of the group’s shows for the remainder of the decade until their breakup in 1989. There has only been a one-song reunion of this configuration of the band, when they played this particular song at the 20th anniversary Merlefest festival in 2007.

I Know You Rider: Blind Lemon Jefferson to the Grateful Dead to The Seldom Scene to the Telluride House Band

The Telluride House Band is the pick-up all-star band—led by America’s only true king, Sam Bush—that plays at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. This year Bush, Jerry Douglas (dobro), Béla Fleck (banjo), MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Edgar Meyer (bass), and Stuart Duncan (fiddle) welcomed Chris “Critter” Eldridge (guitar) to the group for the first time. As is to be expected, they played a wide-ranging set but ended with an appropriate selection: I Know You Rider.

Fleck, Bush, and Douglas have been the mainstays of the House Band and many other all-star pick-up groups through the years. As Walter Tunis wrote about Bush and Douglas on his The Musical Box newsletter,

“. . . the two artists have spent the last five decades redefining the string music vocabulary that has long been the DNA of bluegrass and applying it to all kinds of multi-genre settings. Some were rooted in tradition, others explored wildly progressive terrain. The cool aspect to all this, though, is how many of these half-century adventures the two have explored together—with Douglas on dobro and Bush on mandolin and fiddle—as bandmates onstage or as studio players on the same recording sessions.”

Béla could have easily been added to that description.

Rider was a signature tune for the classic lineup of The Seldom Scene back in the 1970s, and Béla begins his banjo solo at the 6:38 mark with the same licks that Critter’s father Ben Eldridge—the banjo player for the Scene—used to kick off his break. Of course, Béla being Béla he quickly heads off into no-man’s land.

I have always enjoyed the Scene’s live version of Rider, heard from their classic Live at the Cellar Door LP.

The song actually has a long history. Most suggest that it originated with the great bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson as Deceitful Brownskin Blues from 1927. Rock bands also featured the song, perhaps the best known being the Grateful Dead. Of course Jerry Garcia‘s links to American roots music have been well documented thanks in part to his musical partnership with David Grisman.

Old and In the Way featuring David Grisman (center on mandolin) and Jerry Garcia (right on banjo)

Can’t Stop Now: New Grass Revival to Greensky Bluegrass

Greensky Bluegrass  began playing together 25 years ago and they remain road warriors today. Based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, these five musicians play bluegrass music and much more on traditional bluegrass instruments. In fact, Greensky Bluegrass fits nicely into the progressive bluegrass and jam band category begun lo those many years ago by Sam Bush and the New Grass Revival, II Generation, and others. 

So it was appropriate at this year’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival that the band called Sam Bush up on stage and pulled out a version of Can’t Stop Now, a show-stopper for NGR back in the day.

The “official video” of NGR playing this song is pure 1980s . . . with lots of long but oh-so-good-looking hair and twirling musicians. But you’ll get the sense of the energy in the song and it is always great to hear John Cowan hit that note on the word “NOW” and hang on for dear life.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Hartford to Bush to Billy Strings

John Hartford was a “true original” as his website notes. I’ve written that his quirky, hippy-bluegrass Aereo-Plain album may be my favorite of all time.

Aereo-Plain back cover
The Aereo-Plain Band: Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, John Hartford, and Tut Taylor

But in addition to the tune Holding from that project, Hartford wrote about his love of grass on more than one occasion. Granny Wontcha Smoke Some Marijuana is from the Nobody Knows What You Do album and its always been a fun song for the outlaws in bluegrass music to cover. Billy Strings is the newest musician from the current generation to have fun with the song, but I’ve also included Sam Bush’s version from his heartfelt tribute album Radio John, as well as John’s original. They are all virtually the same . . . it is a pretty simple and straightforward tune with a clear message.

“I used to get high and listen to the Beatles / Ain’t much fun now that its legal.”

Here’s the original Hartford version:

Let’s End by Previewing an Upcoming Post

In a week or two I’ll be highlighting the new album by Watchhouse (fka Mandolin Orange). One of the songs that first drew me to a deeper appreciation for this folk duo was their cover of Bob Dylan‘s Boots of Spanish Leather. Here’s Emily and Andrew’s take on the classic work of an earlier master . . . another example of recognizing and celebrating one’s musical lineage.

Enjoy!

More to come . . .

DJB

The capacity for change

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In our age of hyper partisanship and escalating political violence, so many observers see the figurative (if not literal) end of the world. It is so easy for the loudest voices to declare that this is all unprecedented.

Yes, the current state of our union is perilous and we do need to undertake serious course corrections. And no, this is not the first time that’s been the case. Furthermore, the disunion of the Civil War is not the only point from our history we should consider when seeking parallels.

A historian of political history writes that we would do well to consider the time after the war by looking at the fifty year era from 1865 to 1915. Those five decades demonstrate that we have seen both extreme ugliness and bold reform when it comes to our democracy.

The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865—1915 (2021) by Jon Grinspan considers the economic and technological disruptions following the end of the Civil War and dives deeply into the aggressive tribal partisanship that grew to be a defining feature of that era. As Grinspan details, national elections were often decided by one or two percentage points. Control of Congress changed hands regularly. Elections were stolen and two presidents were elected after losing the popular vote. There was one presidential impeachment. Political violence was everywhere, including the assassination of three presidents. Large groups of rowdy men in special uniforms—essentially partisan street gangs—gathered for torchlit marches through cities and towns to support one of the two political parties. Fights on election day, including stabbings and shootings, were common. And yet voter turnout was off-the-charts, often reaching 75-80% of the eligible population.

Democracy was seen to be in crisis, especially by upper classes who looked on in horror as new immigrant groups from Europe and newly enfranchised Black Americans exercised their right to vote. The resulting story of what it cost to cool our republic has lessons both positive and negative for today’s period of political crisis.

Grinspan anchors this tale in the lives of a remarkable father-daughter political dynasty that is not well-known today: radical Pennsylvania Congressman William “Pig Iron” Kelley and his fiery Socialist-turned-Progressive daughter Florence “Florie” Kelley. Between them they covered a wide swath of American history. Pig Iron Kelley shook hands with Andrew Jackson, provided political advice to Abraham Lincoln, was a long-time advocate for workers and African Americans, and became known as a staunch supporter of tariffs. Kelley was an honest man who struggled to be heard in the heated, highly partisan, two-party era of the Gilded Age. His brilliant daughter Florie moved to Zurich where she regularly attended Swiss socialist meetings. Among her regular correspondents was Friedrich Engels, who became the world’s best-known socialist following the death of Karl Marx. Back in the U.S. she was a long-time and fierce opponent of child labor, working closely with Jane Addams at Chicago’s Hull House settlement. Florie played important roles in attaining women’s suffrage and establishing Social Security.

Most people today, Grinspan notes, don’t think about the politics of the late 1800s. But immediately after the Civil War, “pure democracy” seemed possible. Slavery was dead. The old oligarchy of slave owners was vanquished. Four million formerly enslaved people were looking for new rights, and one way to get those was at the ballot box. The U.S. at this time became one of the first governments in the world to give decisive political power to people without wealth, land or title. With that gift came deep immersion and heated passions. Grinspan describes election day as “a communal, combative, boozy bacchanal.”

Fearful for the future of democracy, the elites pushed back. No one thing led the change from the 19th century’s noisy, violent, partisanship to the rather calm—some might say abnormal—politics of much of the 20th century. But a number of factors came together. Suppression of lower class voters—by Jim Crow laws in the South and by tightened literacy tests nationwide—played a big role. Private voting on a machine took much of the theatre out of Election Day. Before that invention voters were handed a colored ballot by the party and cast their votes in front of others in their tribe (or others trying to persuade them to change sides). A war against saloons, which was a piece of the larger push for national prohibition, took away these “poor men’s clubs” which had offered “a crucial institution to workingmen (and ‘disreputable’ women).” They had played a key role in the election process and by 1900 there were over 250,000 in America—“more saloons per capita than there are Starbucks today.” With all these changes, voting rates dropped to below 50% on a regular basis in the 20th century. It was quieter, but many would say there was less government by the people.

We may look at our politics today and say that all we see around us is abnormal. Some argue that we’ve never, for instance, had a political party trying to establish a police state, or one that regularly uses shows of force to build fear, or one that takes money away from children to enrich a small number of wealthy Americans. But that only holds up for examination if you disregard the perspective of Blacks in the Jim Crow South. Or the perspective of Japanese Americans held in internment camps not to mention Native Americans herded into reservations and Indian Schools. Or the perspective of immigrant and other children of the poor working long hours seven days a week in crowded, hot tenement factories.

“The deep history of American electoral politics [writes Grinspan] can seem static and flat—a succession of dull, inconsequential presidents with gray beards and silly names—punctuated by the single crisis of the Civil War. This makes it feel as if any conflict means impending collapse, that the only two options for our democracy are doldrums or disunion. But our political system is not nearly so brittle. There is incredible variability in how we have used our democracy, with plenty of room for ugliness without apocalypse, and for reform without utopia. The lesson of the Age of Acrimony in American politics is that the range of normal feelings is far broader than the detached calm insisted on for much of the twentieth century.”

We are on a winding road. “This is Not Normal” notes Grinspan, might as well be our national motto. History shows us that there is a great deal of capacity for change lying dormant in American democracy. Today, as in the past, the capacity for positive or negative change lies with the American people ourselves.

More to come . . .

DJB

Image: “Grand Procession of Wide Awakes at dusk on the evening of October 3, 1860.” Harpers Weekly, October 13, 1860, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute

From the bookshelf: June 2025

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When reading from a variety of genres on a range of topics one can have the sense of meandering through life. During our professional careers we often feel the need to focus, keeping up-to-date on our “areas of expertise.” Some subjects, however, call for different perspectives as they are better understood “through analogy, context, parallels, the view from the distance, rather than via direct and dogged pursuit.”

There is a benefit to reading widely that I wish I had discovered earlier in life: a variety of viewpoints and voices helps deepen my own vision. This hope for a wider and deeper understanding of the world sustains my monthly intention to read a minimum of five books on a variety of topics from different genres. Here are the books I read in June 2025. If you click on the title, you’ll go to the longer post on MORE TO COME.

Enrich your reading habits and your life. Wander. Dawdle. Live.

On Juneteenth (2021) by Annette Gordon-Reed is a work of both history and memoir that explores the long road to the actual events toward emancipation on a June day in 1865 and then forward to the recognition of that date as a national holiday in the 21st century. Juneteenth remembers and celebrates June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state: Emancipation Day. Gordon-Reed, best known for her deep and earth-moving scholarship on the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings relationship, looks at a more personal subject here. A native of Texas, she examines her own life and mixes it with historical events from the state, nation, and world to shape a more truthful narrative around emancipation. By taking the long view, Gordon-Reed helps the reader see, as one reviewer notes, “that historical understanding is a process, not an end point.”

The Death of Shame (2025) by Ambrose Parry is the most recent installment of the Raven and Fisher mystery series. Set in 1854 Edinburgh, a prologue has the reader at the top of the Scott Monument, where we see one character’s dramatic response to public humiliation and shame. After some scene setting we then move into the heart of the work. In a world with strict moral codes and very restrictive societal roles for women, Sarah Fisher—a young widow left with financial resources after the death of her husband—is helping fund Dr. Will Raven’s emerging medical practice in exchange for being secretly trained as a doctor. As the story progresses, Will and Sarah are drawn into an ever more confusing and dangerous web of treachery, blackmail, secrets, and murder among the city’s more sordid residents. In the end, Sarah uncovers the way to break the bonds held over this cast of characters by unscrupulous and vicious men and women, leading to a successful conclusion to the case as well as an ending that has life-changing consequences for Raven and Fisher.

Version 1.0.0

Still Life (2005) by Louise Penny is a traditional mystery set in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines south of Montreal. A beloved local fixture, Miss Jane Neal, has been found dead on Thanksgiving morning in what the locals think is a tragic hunting accident but Chief Inspector Armand Gamache fears is something much more sinister. In this first of a series that now stretches over 20 years, we see the Chief Inspector’s strength, integrity, and underlying compassion for the victim, the townspeople who mourn Jane Neal’s death, and for his own team. Penny writes in a crisp and readable style, providing us with key insights into Gamache, his detectives, the quirky townspeople, and ultimately the killer. Throughout, Gamache falls in love with the tiny village as Penny is setting up the longer series and the Chief Inspector’s continued involvement in the life—and deaths—of Three Pines. 

No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain (2025) by Rebecca Solnit is a celebration of indirection. Focused on history, power, change, and possibility, Solnit writes in beautiful prose poetry to inspire hope in dark times. She builds this work on two terms she suggests we all adopt: One is “longsighted,” which she writes is “the capacity to see patterns unfold over time.” The other, as alternative to “inevitable,” is the rarely used adjective “evitable.” As she notes in the introduction, the “misremembering of the past (or not remembering the past at all) ill equips us to face the future.” In a series of essays Solnit uses her formidable storytelling skills to seek out examples of slowness, patience, endurance, and long-term vision. “I’ve come to recognize,” she writes, “that changing the story, dismantling the stories that trap us, finding stories adequate to our realities, are foundational to finding our powers and possibilities.”

The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver tricked, tormented, and reinvented baseball (2025) by John W. Miller is a splendid new biography of one of the game’s great characters and innovators. Weaver—forward-looking genius, shrewd evaluator of talent, brilliant strategist, superb entertainer, part wizard—is deserving of the royal treatment. The Bismarck of Baltimore came into the game at the twilight of the age of the baseball manager. His uncanny skill at figuring out so many things about the game without the benefit of the computer probably hastened the age’s demise. Now they just program the machines to think like Earl, but they can’t teach them . . . or today’s managers . . . his character. As Miller shows in this masterful new work, they broke the mold with Earl Weaver.

What’s on the nightstand for July (subject to change at the whims of the reader)

Keep reading!

More to come . . .

DJB

NOTE: Click to see the books I read in May of 2025 and to see the books I read in 2024. Also check out Ten tips for reading five books a month.

Photo: The Library at Erddig, Wrexham © National Trust Images / John H / via International National Trusts Organisation

Lone Cypress

What constitutes a good life?

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Tom Brown would have been 100 years old today.

Born on July 5, 1925 in Franklin, Tennessee, Daddy passed away on May 14, 2016 just shy of his 91st birthday. His years on earth, by so many measures, were rich and full.

As this anniversary approached, I’ve been reflecting on what makes a good life.

Tom Brown
Tom Brown as a child
Tom Brown with Uncle Dave
With Uncle Dave Wagner
Navy portrait
Navy portrait from 1945

Tom Brown’s belief in service is a good starting point to begin that reflection. Daddy was a World War II veteran and felt it was his duty to serve the country that had provided so much for him. Throughout his career as an electrical engineer he went out at all hours in all types of weather to ensure that the residents of the Tennessee Valley had power. Outside of work he led an active volunteer life, having served as assistant scout master of Boy Scout Troop 416 and as a deacon for First Baptist Church for many years. After retirement, he served as a Mission Service Corps Volunteer of the SBC’s North American Mission Board, as a lay renewal coordinator, and as a driving safety instructor for AARP. These only show the tip of the iceberg as his life was full of moments when he helped others who needed a hand.

Helen and Tom Brown, 1950
My parents – Helen and Tom Brown – in 1950
Tom Brown at Sewanee
Tom Brown at the power station at Sewanee, TN

A life-long New Deal Democrat, he believed in treating everyone fairly—whether they looked like you, thought like you, or held the same values as you. Daddy could disagree but he never disparaged others. He believed in paying his fair share of taxes because we all live in community and not everyone had the same benefits that we enjoyed growing up white, middle class, and privileged in ways we could not even understand. 

Tom Brown tried his best to teach his children that everyone was human and deserved respect. Our parents expected us to use the titles “Mr.” and “Mrs.” when speaking with African-American men and women in the 1960s, even though most of our friends used first names, if that. They welcomed immigrants from other countries who came to Murfreesboro, brought them into our house for meals, and treated them as family. I remember him giving food and money to street-dependent people to help them get back on their feet, just as his mother had done years earlier at her boarding house. And when our gay son and transgendered nephew told their grandfather—in his late 80s at the time—of their life journeys, he said he might have to study up more on the subject but that he loved them as much as he did any of his other grandchildren.

Love was at the heart of a good life for Tom Brown.

Tom Brown 1948
1948 portrait
Daddy and DJB, 1955
Daddy and DJB, 1955
Tom Brown Family
Debbie, Joe, Carol, Daddy, Mom, Steve, and DJB around 1974
Tom Brown transition
My father in the midst of transition
Tom Brown at the Franklin Theatre
Tom Brown at the Lighting of the Marquee at the Franklin Theatre
Outside his favorite restaurant
Tom Brown and Family
Tom Brown (yes, the one with the suspenders) with all his family members to celebrate his 90th birthday

When I posted 90 things about the wonderful life of Tom Brown to honor his 90th birthday I said all of this and more. Like the title of a song from one of his favorite musicians suggests, Daddy lived his life fully, with body and soul.

Tom Brown was not a wealthy man in the eyes of the world. But he was rich in so many ways that count. In his faith. In love of his wife, children, and extended family. In friendships that stretched across the globe. In his insatiable curiosity. In a deep belief in community and a deep, deep love for people.

I can think of few individuals I have known who followed the biblical injunction of the prophet Micah to “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” more fully than Tom Brown.

The Belgian-born philosopher Helen De Cruz, who passed away on June 20th of this year at the age of 46, was also thinking about the good life in her last days on earth. In a moving final post in her Wondering Freely newsletter entitled Can’t take it with you, De Cruz wrote:

“The richest man on earth is not happy yet he can buy and do whatever he wants. When we cherish people of the past they were not particularly wealthy. Marie Curie, Vincent Van Gogh, our wise grandmother … we love these people because of what they left us. Not because of what they had.”

De Cruz makes the astute observation that at funerals she has noticed that we cherish others for their quirks. Someone can be remembered “as kind and loving, but also: he loved fishing and was a great Cardinals fan. It seems puzzling that being a sports fan contributes to someone’s virtue. But it does, because that was part of what made him who he is.”

Helen De Cruz came to believe that being a good person—living a good life—means flourishing in many domains. My father certainly exemplified this. He wasn’t just a very good electrical engineer . . . he was more than his job. Tom Brown was also a voracious reader who shared his discoveries and insights with others. Although he could only play two songs on the piano and couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, Daddy was a lifelong fan of Teddy Wilson, Lena Horne, and other musicians of the golden age of jazz. He liked to ride his bicycle and go camping.

“Spinoza [writes De Cruz] counterintuitively argued for an ethical egoism in Ethics. He says we need to benefit ourselves. But our selves are in his picture finite expressions of God. And in our limited way, we can be perfect. Becoming very rich, powerful or prestigious is not benefiting yourself because these are empty goods in his view. This explains why the richest man on earth is not happy and keeps on seeking validation. Also why this Turkish musician is probably happier living in relative simplicity.”

“Instead, you benefit yourself by expressing yourself as a full being, as a rose bush that flowers fully. People also delight in you . . . Spinoza also emphasized that you should not harm others in your pursuits. Do the things you love for yourself and your loved ones will find something good you left behind. I play the lute. I know, even though I am a mediocre player, that people value this in me.”

Author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant has suggested that we pay too much attention to strong opinions—and too little to deep insight and broad perspectives. “Shallow people are impressed by superficiality. They look up to beauty, fame, money, and power.” But the good life is not about superficiality. “Deep people are drawn to substance. They admire wisdom, kindness, humility, and integrity.”

Wealth, at least as much of the world conceives of it, has little to do with living a good life.

The always thoughtful Rebecca Solnit asks, “What if we imagined wealth as consisting of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to clean air and water, to good food produced without abuse of labor or nature?” That perspective on what really matters seems to get at how one lives a good life in community.

One of the best descriptions I’ve discovered of what constitutes a good life comes from On Light and Worth:  Lessons from Medicine by Bernadine Healy, M.D., given as part of a 1994 commencement address at Vassar College.

“As a physician who has been deeply privileged to share the most profound moments of people’s lives, including their final moments, let me tell you a secret.  People facing death don’t think about what degrees they have earned, what positions they have held, or how much wealth they have accumulated.  At the end, what really matters is who you loved and who loved you.  The circle of love is everything and is a good measure of a past life.  It is the gift of greatest worth.”

Each individual has to come to their own conclusions about what constitutes a life well lived and make their own choices about which path to follow. I certainly fall well short of the bar set by my father, although he would remind me that it isn’t a competition.

There are certain characteristics and values that appear most consistently as I consider what constitutes a good life.

They are . . .

Service. Integrity. Fairness. Humility. Kindness. Curiosity. Courage. Wonder. Quirks. And love.

Always love.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of the Lone Cypress in the Del Monte Forest on the Pacific Coast in California by Claire Holsey Brown; The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh from MOMA via Wikimedia; Almond blossoms from pixabay. All other images from the Brown family scrapbook.

Sustaining the dream through turbulent times

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This week we will celebrate July 4th, a holiday that—at least in our memories—cuts across partisan lines. We like to think that a broad cross section of Americans can put aside our differences and come together for parades, picnics, and fireworks that celebrate our independence from a tyrannical autocracy.

Removal of Statue of King George III in NYC on July 9, 1776, by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel. This was the country’s first example of the removal of a monument.

As we approach the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, many are wondering what the future holds. The divides are real and deep. So we ask ourselves, will the country we have loved and ideals we have professed last much longer?

Past Independence Day celebrations have taken place amidst strong partisan rancor and great strife, including when the country was torn apart by a civil war. Today it takes place as one of our political parties continues a 90-year effort to destroy modern government.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson takes us back to 1933, the year before the New Deal brought us a government that cared about more than the wealthiest Americans.

“[A]fter years of extraordinary corporate profits, the banking system had collapsed, the unemployment rate was nearly 25%, prices and productivity were plummeting, wages were cratering, factories had shut down, farmers were losing their land to foreclosure. Children worked in the fields and factories, elderly and disabled people ate from garbage cans, unregulated banks gambled away people’s money, and business owners treated their workers as they wished. Within a year the Great Plains would be blowing away as extensive deep plowing had damaged the land, making it vulnerable to drought. Republican leaders insisted the primary solution to the crisis was individual enterprise and private charity.”

I do not know how the current attacks on democracy will play out, but I do know we have seen them before. It is easy to forget, notes the writer S.C. Gwynne, that the United States “has always been a messy, wildly partisan, and deeply violent experiment. It never wasn’t.” 

As others have written (but probably not Thomas Jefferson), “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” The Constitution, which is the basis for our rule of law and not of kings, has to be saved if our democracy is to function. Yet by any objective measure, much of what the current regime supports through executive order is unconstitutional and cruel. The administration’s signature legislative initiative is, as many have written, epically regressive. Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian has noted not only how awful the bill is for our future, but how deeply unpopular it is with the country at large.

Senator Angus King (I-ME) said, “I’ve been in this business of public policy now for 20 years, eight years as governor, 12 years in the United States Senate. I have never seen a bill this bad. I have never seen a bill that is this irresponsible, regressive, and downright cruel.”

“This place feels to me, today, like a crime scene,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on the floor of the Senate. “Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber. This piece of legislation is corrupt. This piece of legislation is crooked. This piece of legislation is a rotten racket. This bill cooked up in back rooms, dropped at midnight, cloaked in fake numbers with huge handouts to big Republican donors. It loots our country for some of the least deserving people you could imagine. When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.”

The New York Times has listed each provision of the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill as of Monday afternoon, and noted the projected costs or savings.

The costs and savings are important, but historians have been most helpful in setting the context for this massive transfer of wealth and power. Richardson set that context again late on Monday night after updating the ongoing discussions on Sunday evening. She noted that the bill makes the biggest cut ever to programs for low-income Americans. Also, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “said the tax cuts in the budget reconciliation bill the Republican senators are trying to pass will increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years despite the $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other programs over the same period.”

Guillaume A.W. Attia who studies intellectual history at the University of British Columbia posted a helpful essay to also put the MAGA effort in context. “The history of America is a long struggle between the drive for domination and the dream of freedom,” he writes at the Liberal Currents newsletter. Oftentimes it seems that domination is winning.

“This ‘dream yet unfulfilled,’ as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, of ‘a land where men of all races, colors, and creeds live together as brothers’ would not seem real until the new millennium, when almost 70 million Americans would elect a visibly ‘colored’ politician as president of the United States. Much of this history can—and often does—leave a person with a cynical outlook on the nation’s history and character, but that is only if one chooses to ignore the myriads of ways in which Americans of all stripes struggled throughout the country’s difficult history to make this a ‘more perfect union.'” (emphasis added)

Historian and activist Rebecca Solnit has suggested that we too often have a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue.

“We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyranny, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.”

As Attia notes, “For all his faults (and there were many), Thomas Jefferson’s fateful decision to include the words ‘all men are created equal’ [in the Declaration of Independence] helped transform the U.S. into a nation committed in theory, but seldom in practice, to the equal treatment of others.”

“Thanks to his intervention, the nation’s greatest men, among them Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, and even the brilliant heretic, John C. Calhoun, were all forced to contend with those egalitarian words, and found them impossible to ignore.”

It is clear that the current regime doesn’t believe that all persons are equal. In addition to immigrants it has targeted LGBTQ+ individuals and DEI programs. Yes, there is bad news, as in the forced resignation of the University of Virginia president because of his DEI work. But millions turned out for Pride events last month and still support equality for all Americans.

In a recent post entitled Virginia Candidates Show You Can Try to Kill DEI, But You’ll Fail, journalist Jill Lawrence demonstrates the truth of Solnit’s assertion.

“In a state whose first two governors were Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, two women will face off for the top job: former congresswoman and CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, a white Democrat, and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a black Republican, Jamaican immigrant, and Marine Corps veteran.

A gay conservative talk-radio host is running for lieutenant governor on the Republican side against an Indian immigrant. And for attorney general, a black former state legislator on the Democratic ticket is challenging the Hispanic Republican incumbent.

Who would have conceived of such a thing here in 2025?

Work on the Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull (1818)

Well, actually, many of us. Historian Kevin Kruse continues to remind his readers that the exact same “replacement theory” claims we see today by the anti-DEI crowd were being made a century ago, about the exact same city (New York), with only the identities of the “immigrant horde” changing. Ditto for the century before that.

Yes, the racist panic has been a constant, but the elasticity of what makes an American is also present, continuing to expand, as more and more Americans see the value of diversity. Many of those who are leading the anti-DEI charge (e.g., Stephen Miller) had immigrant ancestors whose very arrival was decried as a sign of America’s imminent collapse. The present level of hatred and bigotry comes and goes. It is not, however, inevitable.

During this 249th celebration of Independence Day there is still much work to do. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Thankfully, good trouble lives on. Thankfully, there are millions who still dream for a better, more just, more equitable future and they are willing to expend the effort—as their ancestors did—to help us move towards that ideal.

More to come . . .

DJB

UPDATES: A couple of quick notes after the passage of the epically regressive budget reconciliation bill. First, Jennifer Rubin’s column on the similarities between the list of grievances against King George III in the Declaration of Independence and today’s authoritarianism makes for a timely read on July 4th. It is important to remember that for many years Rubin was a reliable voice for conservative Republican policies. Second, Paul Waldman provides his take on the reasoning for what appears to be a politically damaging vote.

Photograph of fireworks on the National Mall from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Other images from Wikimedia.

Observations from . . . June 2025

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A summary of the June posts from the MORE TO COME newsletter.

The solstice arrived this month amidst the ongoing battle to uphold democracy and the rule of law; support decency and concern for all humans; fight for our rights and our protections. While surveying the bounty of nature alongside the insatiable desire of the oligarchy to hoard more and more of our public wealth, I have been considering what one wise writer calls summertime truths.

Here are two I believe, although neither is original. First, abundance is a communal act. Second, even with work to be done—especially because the work never ends—every one of us needs time off to dawdle. Community not only creates abundance, writes Parker J. Palmer—community is abundance. “If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world would be transformed.” Following on that assertion is my belief that blank spaces in your calendar can be restorative and magical. Transformational even.

We are always in the middle of the story, even when—as I reflect upon the post with the most reader views this month—we are looking at the end of life. So much of what matters extends beyond the years of one lifetime. Rebecca Solnit phrased this universal relationship beautifully. “The past equips us to face the future; continuity of memory tells us we are both descendants and ancestors.”

We have often thrived on the bounty provided by past generations but we should also work to ensure an abundant life for the future. “Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier,” wrote Albert Schweitzer, the Nobel laureate famous for his Reverence for Life philosophy.

Let’s jump in and see how these thoughts played out in the MORE TO COME posts this month.

TOP READER FAVORITES

After learning that a friend and former colleague passed away following a difficult battle with pancreatic cancer, I sat down and wrote Life is finite . . . love is not. Hundreds of readers were touched when Nancy—in the last message sent to friends and family just a few days before she passed—talked about drawing from a great reservoir of gratitude for the wonderful life she’s been given. What a beautiful way to think about our time on earth.

REMEMBERING WHAT’S IMPORTANT

Americans are being told that we need to enact terrible and cruel policies based on made-up history. Four MTC posts from June came at this challenge in different ways.

  • A compass, not a manual is my take on Rebecca Solnit’s terrific new book of essays No Straight Road Takes You There. I’m quoting from this book often during these strange times, as she reminds us that we’ve seen serious attacks on democracy and rights before, and the way forward is not always a simple, straight path.
  • Juneteenth: An American story reviews Annette Gordon-Reed’s history/memoir On Juneteenth, a short but powerful examination of history, race, and agency.
  • Protecting space for the ancient questions is a reflection on spiritual writers who show us how in times of personal and political distress “nature gives us a model of persistence and the promise of new life.” 
  • Three things is a rather short piece produced the morning after the U.S. bombed Iran.

GREAT JOURNEY THROUGH EUROPE

June was another month of travel to see exceptional places, meet a cross-section of humanity, ponder different perspectives. We spent two weeks in Europe, and I reflected on this trip with four different posts:

Our next National Trust Tours trip is set for this fall. The Emerald Isle Cruise: Ireland and Northern Ireland should be splendid. There is still room available and we’d love to have you join us!

THE BOOKS I READ THIS MONTH

A familiar pose . . . this one from last November

The quirks of the calendar and travel meant that I posted seven different book reviews during June. In addition to the two above, here are the other five, in no particular order.

  • The Copernicus of baseball—John W. Miller’s biography The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver tricked, tormented, and reinvented baseball is an informative read that’s also great fun. They broke the mold when they made The Earl of Baltimore.
  • The many forms of love—John Williams’ classic novel Stoner became a surprise bestseller decades after it was originally released.
  • Return to the beginning—Louise Penny’s murder mystery Still Life is the first in her long-running Inspector Gamache series.

From the bookshelf: May 2025 is the familiar monthly summary.

COMMENTS I LOVED

I came late to reading the classic American novel Stoner. Brilliant reader Tracy was just one of several who wrote to say this was a book worth savoring: “STONER is one of my favorite books, David. Thanks for reminding me why.”

CONCLUSION

Thanks, as always, for reading. Your friendship, support and feedback mean more than I can ever express.

As you travel life’s highways be open to love; thirst for wonder; undertake some mindful, transformative walking every day. Recognize the incredible privilege that most of us have and think about how to put that privilege to use for good. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, public servants, and others can feel especially vulnerable . . . because they are. Work hard for justice and democracy as the fight never ends.

But also take time to dawdle and dream. Leave enough empty space to feel and experience life. Those gaps are where the magic begins. When times get rough, let your memories wander back to some wonderful place with remembrances of family and friends. But don’t be too hard on yourself if a few of the facts slip. Just get the poetry right.

Remember that “we are here to keep watch, not to keep.” Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. And bash into some joy along the way.

Life is finite . . . love is not.

Try to be nice. Always be kind.

More to come . . .

DJB

For the May 2025 summary, click here.

You can subscribe to MORE TO COME by going to the small “Follow” box that is on the right-hand column of the site (on the desktop version) or at the bottom right on your mobile device. It is great to hear from readers, and if you like them feel free to share these posts on your own social media platforms.

Image of statue of Novel laureate Albert Schweitzer in Strasbourg, France by Simone Mayor (credit: simonemayor.ch)

Our journey through Europe

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Great Journeys or Grand Tours of Europe harken back to a period from the 17th—19th centuries where extended travel for pleasure became a crucial part of an elite education and a symbol of social status. Neither was the case when Candice and I completed our own Great Journey earlier this month where I served as an educational expert with National Trust Tours. Nevertheless, it was an adventure we’ll long remember.

The other lecturer on our trip was British historian Jeremy Black, MBE, who has written extensively on the history of the Grand Tour, especially in the 18th century. One of his talks discussed that aspect of the history of tourism. He took us not only to the standard destinations of France and Italy but also the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland and the Balkans. Jeremy touched on the pleasures and hazards of travel as he built a “vivid and frequently amusing picture of travel experience of British aristocrats on the Continent.”

Our 21st century tour differed significantly from those of the elites of the 1700s, but we still had a wonder-filled ten-day excursion. I’ve written about our time in the Swiss Alps, Lucerne, and touring some of the grand churches and cathedrals of Europe so this final post—primarily of images—is designed to wrap everything together.

Switzerland

The Swiss Alps provided us with another opportunity to see great and elemental things in other parts of the world. The three photos below of Lauterbrunnen, Engelberg, and Kleine Scheidegg are just a teaser to encourage you to check out my earlier post on these three days at the top of Europe.

Likewise, I’ve included just a handful of photos from the picture-perfect Central Swiss city of Lucerne as encouragement to stroll through the more extensive collection in my earlier post.

Basel, Switzerland is where we joined our ship for the cruising portion of the tour, but not before a walking tour took us to visit the magnificent town hall, historic plazas, and cathedral.

Basel town hall

France

In Strasbourg one sees essentially two cities―the older Medieval city which grew around the cathedral and features building styles and urban development that grew organically over centuries―and then the new town, which was built from 1871-1918 by the Germans following the Franco-Prussian War. This part of Strasbourg reflects the principles of urban redesign for modern cities most famously featured in Paris.

Strasbourg (credit: UNESCO)

There is a typical challenge in big cities around how to address through-traffic without completely damaging the minute weave of local streets. In Strasbourg’s older city one sees centuries of construction integrated into a Medieval urban plan around the cathedral in a way that respects that ancient fabric. There are Renaissance-style private residences built between the 15th century and the late 17th century in this part of the city.

Strasbourg, a mixture of very old and not quite as old cities (credit: UNESCO)

However, from 1871 onwards the face of the town was significantly modified by the construction of an ambitious urban project by the Germans, leading to the emergence of a modern city where technical advances and hygiene became of increasing importance.

You can see both elements of Strasbourg in the photographs below.

Some architects of the day saw this new section as “artificial,” ill-suited to adapt to the old, organic center. However, it did have the advantage of not demolishing centuries of historic architecture that has been reused and rehabilitated time-and-time again. And, of course, now this new part of Strasbourg is also included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

I discuss statues and monuments frequently in my talks and one of my new favorites can be found at Place Saint-Thomas in Strasbourg. The bronze statue of the Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) is the work of Simone Mayor (2021) and depicts the famed Alsatian pastor, theologian, doctor and musician seated upon a sandstone wall that runs beside the St. Thomas Church. It is a humble portrayal of the 1952 Noble Prize winner for his “Reverence for Life” philosophy.

I love the photos on the artist’s website (I’ve included a few here), which shows how so many people relate to this “common man among the people” depiction.

Germany

As we cruised the Rhine and Moselle rivers in Germany, we visited Heidelberg, Cochem, the castles of the Upper Rhine Valley, and Cologne.

Heidelberg is a college town lying on the river Neckar, and a quarter of the population are students. During World War II the city was almost completely spared because of the lack of industrial and war-making facilities in the region, so the historic section is authentic and—to use the technical architectural term—charming.

Heidelberg

High above the city sits Heidelberg Castle, with a mixture of ruins and functioning structures and spaces.

The Upper Rhine River Gorge is the setting for all those wonderful ads encouraging visitors to “take a river cruise in Europe.” The scenery is spectacular and there does seem to be another castle popping up every five minutes or so. All the photographers on the trip were busy capturing the glorious views.

Rhine River . . . perfect for an ad for a river cruise (credit: Getty Images via Unsplash)
Rhine River Castle (credit: UNESCO World Heritage Site)

Cochem is a small town of about 5,000 people that has been part of Germany since 1815. It features small alleyways leading to the medieval market square, and a promenade along the Moselle River. Cochem Castle, which towers over the town, has a long history of changing hands after battles and wars (the last time being World War II when it was taken back from Nazi hands).

Cochem

I focused on Cologne and its impressive cathedral earlier this month, so these photos are to encourage you to seek out that post.

Amsterdam

Our final day involved an afternoon canal cruise through Amsterdam, the second one we’d taken in the past six weeks. Here’s a link to a post from our earlier trip that includes some of the highlights in this most fascinating of cities.

Canals of Amsterdam
Westerkerk 
Portuguese Synagogue

And I’ll end on a personal note

As is our custom, Candice found a stellar local restaurant for us to explore during our first couple of days before we joined the tour. We celebrated Candice’s birthday at IGNIV Zurich. A wonderful time . . . and a delicious meal . . . was had by all!

Our next National Trust Tours trip is set for this fall. The Emerald Isle Cruise: Ireland and Northern Ireland should be splendid. There is still room available and we’d love to have you join us!

More to come . . .

DJB

Image of Upper Rhine River by Amos Chappel from UNESCO World Heritage listing. All other photos by DJB unless otherwise credited.

The Copernicus of baseball

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Some books receive fulsome recommendations that are hard to square with the reader’s actual experience. Others deserve the acclaim that comes their way.

Then there are books—like this one—that deserve all the praise they receive and more.

The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver tricked, tormented, and reinvented baseball (2025) by John W. Miller is a splendid new biography of one of the game’s great characters and innovators. Weaver—forward-looking genius, shrewd evaluator of talent, brilliant strategist, superb entertainer, part wizard—is deserving of the royal treatment. The Bismarck of Baltimore came into the game at the twilight of the age of the baseball manager. His uncanny skill at figuring out so many things about the game without the benefit of the computer probably hastened the age’s demise. Now they just program the machines to think like Earl, but they can’t teach them . . . or today’s managers . . . his character. Always quick with the quip Weaver was a quote machine who had a purpose when unleashing his acid tongue. An umpire once offered to give him his rule book; Earl immediately shot back, “No thank you. I don’t read braille.”

They broke the mold with Earl Weaver.

Long-time fans and newcomers to baseball now have this marvelous biography, written by a first-rate reporter who obviously loves the game. Miller provides a more complete picture of this complex individual, beginning with Weaver’s childhood where he was partially raised by a mobster uncle. The “Gangs of St. Louis” chapter was especially enlightening.

Weaver’s deep analysis of games and probabilistic outcomes came as a result of his youth in a culture saturated with gambling. This was an eye-opening revelation, as I have often been a vociferous opponent of gambling in today’s game.

“Americans wagered as much as $5 billion a years on baseball in the 1940s. The sport’s pitch-by-pitch beat of precise, often binary outcomes has always fit gambling like a ball in a glove. In fact, it’s unclear if baseball would have become a popular professional sport without the interest of the gamblers.”

The gambling culture pushed Earl to hone his analytical skills, leading him to grasp probability theory through the prism of gambling. Earl “talked like a bookmaker” according to one baseball executive. I’m still not sure I approve of the legalized gambling in today’s game, but thanks to Miller’s reporting I now have a much better appreciation for its role in the game’s history.

I also enjoyed Miller’s references to Weaver and the classic baseball move Bull Durham. Hollywood director Ron Shelton had been a minor-leaguer in the Orioles system before turning to the movies. One of the stars of the film—hard throwing pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh—was based on Steve Dalkowski, a real-life prospect who threw harder than anyone else. But he never knew where the ball was going. Plus he drank. Weaver, as his minor-league manager in Elmira, came closest to getting this unharnessed talent to the majors.

“As a minor league manager, Weaver was the only manager who came close to helping legendary pitching enigma Steve Dalkowski become a major league pitcher. Dalkowski is considered among the top handful of hardest thrower pitchers in baseball history, but suffered an extraordinary lack of control. In 1958, Dalkowski struck out 203 batters in 104 innings, but walked 207. Over his minor league career, he walked over 1,200 in 956 innings. However, in 1962, Weaver managed him with the Elmira Pioneers, and worked with Dalkowski to simplify Dalkowski’s approach to pitching. For the first time, Dalkowski averaged less than a walk an inning, and his earned run average was over two runs less than any prior year. Dalkowski was on his way to making the Orioles major league roster the following year when an arm injury effectively ended his career.”

Wikipedia

When introducing the Orioles’ new manager in 1968, general manager Harry Dalton said, “In short, I believe Earl Weaver is a winner.” At 5’7″ Weaver was short. And he was a winner. Much of the book looks in depth at Earl’s time with the big-league club. During those 17 years Weaver had only two losing seasons: his first and his last.

After he took over in Baltimore, Weaver hung a sign in the clubhouse: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Weaver exemplified this attitude more than most. He changed the way he approached the game based on the players he had. Earl was the only manager to hold a job during the five years leading up to and the five years after free agency upended the sport in 1976. He was able to figure out how to work with the hand he was given.

His famous ten laws of baseball evolved over time, but they show a sharp strategic mind as well an everyman intelligence.

  1. No one’s going to give a damn in July if you lost a game in March.
  2. If you don’t make any promises to your players, you won’t have to break them.
  3. The easiest way around the bases is with one swing of the bat.
  4. Your most precious possessions on offense are your 27 outs.
  5. If you play for one run, that’s all you’ll get.
  6. Don’t play for one run unless you know that run will win a ballgame.
  7. It’s easier to find four good starters than five.
  8. The best place for a rookie pitcher is long relief.
  9. The key step for an infielder is the first one—left or right—but before the ball is hit.
  10. The job of arguing with the umpires belongs to the manager, because it won’t hurt the team if he gets kicked out of the game.

“Just as Copernicus understood heliocentric cosmology a full century before the invention of the telescope,” Tom Verducci wrote in Sports Illustrated in 2009, “Weaver understood smart baseball a generation before it was empirically demonstrated.”

Finally, as you would expect in a full biography of Earl Weaver, this one is sprinkled with colorful quotes and lots of f-bombs. Just a few of the Weaverisms found in The Last Manager include:

  • I gave Mike Cuellar more chances than I gave my first wife.
  • The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.
  • Don’t worry, the fans don’t start booing until July.
  • Everything changes everything.

When a young Tom Boswell apologized for interviewing Weaver during the National Anthem, the manager shrugged it off and said, “Don’t worry, this ain’t a football game. We do this every day.”

One of the most famous of Weaver’s run-ins with umpires came on September 17, 1980. First base umpire Bill Haller agreed to wear a mic for a local Washington news show, but Weaver wasn’t aware of that key fact. So when he ran out of the dugout to protest a balk, one of the great manager/umpire arguments of all time ensued, and it was caught on film. Don’t watch this if your ears are sensitive.

Later, of course, Earl could do a spoof with former player Bob Uecker on how to argue effectively with an umpire.

As Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan said of Weaver when The Earl of Baltimore passed away in 2013: “There’s nobody like him left.”

More to come . . .

DJB

Return to the beginning

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When thrown into the middle of a long-running series, I find myself wanting to return to read the origin story. Recently, after completing Louise Penny’s 15th installment in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, I returned to the first, where she introduces the reader to the wise Inspector and his world.

Still Life (2005) by Louise Penny is a traditional mystery set in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines south of Montreal. A beloved local fixture, Miss Jane Neal, has been found dead on Thanksgiving morning in what the locals think is a tragic hunting accident but the Chief Inspector fears is something much more sinister. Gamache commands a small force of Montreal homicide detectives to search for the truth. In this first of the series that now stretches over 20 years, we see the Chief Inspector’s strength, integrity, and underlying compassion for the victim, the townspeople who mourn Jane Neal’s death, and for his own team. Penny writes in a crisp and readable style, providing us with key insights into Gamache, his detectives, the quirky townspeople, and ultimately the killer.

Gamache, we learn, has benefited in his career from mentors and senior officers who believed in him and yet were not afraid to speak the truth when he needed to hear it face-to-face. Penny includes several characters who are being mentored by the Chief Inspector, from his second-in-command to a young Agent Yvette Nichol who so wants to impress Gamache with her brain and policing skills but who cannot see—even when it is written in plain English on a mirror—that she is looking at the problem. Nichols’ desire to showcase her skills combined with her inability to collaborate with the team makes for an interesting sub-plot for Gamache to solve.

Three Pines is a small, fictional village where everyone is “more than they appear.” A respected poet who is the town grouch, an influential artist and his less-influential artistic wife, and a gay couple who have moved to the village to run the local bistro and find themselves. Jane Neal, the village’s long-time schoolteacher before her retirement, has left clues to her murderer in her “art” that she has finally consented to share with her friends. Knowing that they may be uncovered leads the killer to act. Gamache and his team work through several scenarios and potential suspects before the identity is uncovered in a believable and satisfying conclusion.

Throughout, one can see Gamache falling in love with the tiny village and its quirky citizens, as Penny is setting up the longer series and the Chief Inspector’s continued involvement in the life—and deaths—of Three Pines. A strong debut and worth the read for those interested in good, contemporary murder mysteries.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of forest from Unsplash