All Is Quiet on Christmas Day

Walker Evans and I just completed our Christmas neighborhood walk, including a stretch of the normally very busy Elmwood Avenue.
Only three business out of the more than 20 we passed by were open; the Sunoco station/mini mart at Elmwood and Hodge, and the Tokyo Shango Bistro and Peking Chinese restaurants, both on Elmwood Avenue between West Utica and Hodge.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everybody.

Who Do I Turn To?

It's been a difficult week or so, beyond the usual financial and other problems, with a disorienting call form my mother Sheila today a real tough one.
So, I normally turn to my loving wife, Val, and dog Walker Evans, for support, love and discussion. Sadly, both Val and Walker Evans are sick and sleeping/resting; Val has been voiceless for the better part of the last 48 hours.
As I write this, I realize that this is both an exercise in rhetoric and probably a self-pity session that should end now, but the laundry isn't going to engage me in discussion, so...

Um, Who?

Like most people, Val and I receive a lot of donation solicitations through the mail, as well as online. Due to our continued tenuous financial state, we cannot really make any at this time, worthy or not.
But at least we get an occasional laugh. Tuesday, we received two solicitations for donations in the mail from the same place, St. John's-Grace Church on Colonial Circle in Buffalo, seeking National Register of Historic Places inclusion.
Both are addressed to the same "couple," Valerie & Hosey Dunne. Seems like they are paying both too much and not enough attention to Val and I referring to our house as the Dunne-Hosey Estates.

My Reading List

My lovely wife Val often comments, sometimes strongly, on the books I read, calling them my "happy books."
I have always been a nonfiction book fan more than fiction, not because I dislike fiction (Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and Henrik Ibsen are among my favorites), but because I am a major history fan. I am intrigued and fascinated with what people do to other people, what they create and why, in the macro and micro.
To give you examples, the book I just finished reading was "Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule," by Karel C. Berkhoff, and I am currently reading "Bloody Sunday: Massacre in Northern Ireland, the Eyewitness Accounts," by Don Mullan.
Before these two books, I read a work of fiction, "Celebration," by Harry Crews, which was OK but rather predictable.
It's not that I do not enjoy fiction, as the authors I listed above show, but for me, with so many factual, historical events having occurred that I know little or nothing about, and my need for not only detail but analysis, I seek out this route to reality first.

Yikes; I'm Still Here

I truly apologize to you fine readers for the lack of commentary over the last month or so; I had to look at the date of my last entry to realize how long it has been since I last wrote here.
Due to political campaigning (mostly successful) and a few other activities, I haven't been as good at updating this blog as I should, and starting today, I have several entries to write. I thank you all for sticking with me.