All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts

This is where I put anything that is not easily categorized…

Football Wisdom: “Live One Day at a Time and Scratch Where It Itches”

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My father sent an email today that seemed appropriate to share given the football glut that is the New Year’s holiday.  So here you go – some football wisdom (even if that seems like an oxymoron to baseball fans) from coaches and players of the years of my youth (and before): “At Georgia Southern, we don’t cheat. That costs money and we don’t have any.” – Erk Russell / Georgia Southern. “Football is only a game. Spiritual things are eternal. Nevertheless, Beat Texas.” – Seen on a church sign in Arkansas prior to the 1969 game. “After you retire, there’s only one big event left….and I ain’t ready for that.” – Bobby Bowden / Florida State (who finally retired yesterday on January 1, 2010) “When you win, nothing hurts.” – Joe Namath / Alabama “Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.” – Lou Holtz / Arkansas “If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password: “Roll, tide, roll!” – Bear Bryant / Alabama “A school without …

Merry Christmas 2009

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We left the blizzard of 2009 behind us and headed out to Tennessee to visit with family and friends for the Christmas season.  It has been rejuvenating and restful to be with those folks you don’t choose, but with whom you share so much. Some highlights: Seeing my 84-year-old father with 11 of his 13 grandchildren and all five of his great-grandchildren. (He’ll get to see the other two grandchildren next weekend.) Having Andrew and Claire reconnect with all their cousins and their cousins’ children. The latter group includes two babies born about four months ago (Leighton) and just 10 days ago (Oliver).  Little babies are such great additions to Christmas. Visiting with my sister and her family who have returned to the states after 17+ years overseas. Their older son David is maturing into a wonderful young man while their younger son Nathan is full of life and mischief.  My brother-in-law is a real artist in the wood shop, having built most of the beautiful furniture in their house by himself.  And it was …

Saying Goodbye to Lilly

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Lilly is our 13-year-old Sussex Spaniel.  We’re spending this weekend saying goodbye to her. On Friday we took her to the vet for a “Quality of Life” visit, and the news was what we’d feared for some time.  The slow-growing tumor is getting bigger, she has fluid that has swollen her belly, her breathing is labored, and she’s lost most of her appetite.  We had seen that Lilly could no longer navigate our stairs without help and that her hearing and eyesight had both deteriorated over the past few months.  She has some medicine to help her with the fluid and keep her out of pain, but… It is time.  It isn’t easy. Candice and I had promised Andrew and Claire a dog when they were old enough to help care for one and when we had a proper house (having lived in an apartment for our first two years in Washington).  When that time arrived more than nine years ago, Claire (who drove this process) did a lot of internet research and use to …

When Passions Collide

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I love it when my passions collide. Like when the November/December issue of Preservation magazine has a story on the saving of one of the few remaining Negro League baseball stadiums.  Any preservation story that begins with the name Monte Irvin is guaranteed to warm the heart of this old NY baseball Giants fan.  My mother-in-law thought that because of my position with the National Trust for Historic Preservation I must have chosen the cover picture for the magazine.  I didn’t (although I gave writer Eric Wills lots of encouragement as he put the story together), but I do have a beautiful print of that great shot ready for framing for my office.  And from Preservation Online comes the encouraging news that Patterson, New Jersey’s  Hinchliffe Stadium… …may be restored. The city of Paterson and the school board entered into a shared services agreement in late October 2009, and in early November, voters passed a referendum asking for $15 million to fund the stadium’s renovation. If all goes according to plan, the city will receive permission to issue a …

A Jerry Christmas: Some coal mixed in with the goodies

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Last evening several friends (old and new)  joined me as we caught the last show on the short “Jerry Christmas” tour featuring Dobro master Jerry Douglas along with John Oates and Irish singer Maura O’Connell.  This was my first trip to the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis, and while the room has much to recommend it (especially an intimacy that connects performer and audience), the sound mix wasn’t great and O’Connell’s mic was especially bad, with a buzzing and poor sound quality that should have been fixed after the first song. That sound mix was a bother, but it didn’t stop the musicianship of Douglas and his band from coming through.  The music alternated between seasonal music and “palate cleansers” as Douglas described his regular tunes.  The best of the former was a beautiful In the Bleak Midwinter.  There was a tie for weirdest of the former – between a “spooky” Santa Claus is Coming to Town and a well-named Do You Hear What I Hear where Douglas, after announcing that Christmas melodies were sacrosanct, …

Calatrava’s Samuel Beckett Bridge Opens for Traffic

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Santiago Calatrava’s beautiful Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin opened for traffic this morning following an official ceremony marking the event yesterday. This is a work of art that I was privileged to see in September while it was still under construction. To view Calatrava’s work in the context of the other historic and contemporary Dublin bridges along the River Liffey, check out my September post entitled Santiago Calatrava’s Dublin Bridges (And More) By Dawn’s Early Light. More to come… DJB

St. Nicholas Day 2009: We Are Always Every Age We’ve Ever Been

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Last year’s post about St. Nicholas Day generated a number of favorable comments from friends and family.  Several friends especially remembered the Madeleine L’Engle comment that we are always every age we’ve ever been. So on St. Nicholas Day 2009, when Andrew got a new Calatrava-inspired tie from the Milwaukee Museum of Art and Claire received a beautiful scarf in her favorite color of purple, I will link back to that original post for those who missed the first time or for those who’d like to see it again. Keep up those childhood memories. More to come… DJB

This Holiday Season: Buy Locally

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I have never been one to rush out to the local mall on the so-called “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving.  With a day off, and the opportunity to connect with friends, food, and football, what’s the point? But for the past several years we’ve returned to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley town of Staunton, Virginia, where we lived for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, to spend the holiday with good friends.  We make all those connections above (except for the football – our friends don’t have cable) but we add in lots of live music so it makes for a terrific respite. And we’ve taken to spending a good part of Friday in downtown Staunton.  I know this part of town intimately, having worked with the local merchants, property owners, residents and city officials to preserve it for 13 years.  My office was in the Wharf Historic District and our home was only 4 blocks away in the New Town Historic District.  Downtown Staunton is a National Trust Great American Main Street Award winner as …

Why architecture matters: I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s Hancock Tower

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I’m reading Paul Goldberger’s new book Why Architecture Matters. As you would expect from Paul, it is a smart, well-written work that is designed to help the reader interested in buildings “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually.” I’ve already come across numerous passages and examples that resonate, but last evening I was reading his take on I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s John Hancock Tower on Copley Square in Boston and was reminded of my last impression of that building when Andrew, Claire and I were visiting the city in March 2008. Paul, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is describing the Hancock Tower in comparison to New York’s Seagram Building and G.M. Building.  All three are postwar American landmarks. It was great fun to introduce Claire and Andrew to Copley Square when we visited Boston in 2008.  We toured the great H.H. Richardson-designed Trinity Church, of course, and took …