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First Sentences

“On the morning of April 20,2001, George Tenet gazed out the glass wall of his seventh-floor suite at the Central Intelligence Agency, looking upon a vision of serenity, tall green trees reaching as far as the eye could see.” Tim Weiner, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.

“Behold. Forty-four-year-old him. A low-budget, Black Jack London shivering in the frozen north called Minnesota.” Jason Mott, People Like Us.

“The Bronx is a hand reaching down to pull the other boroughs of New York City out of the harbor and the sea.” Ian Frazier, Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough.

“A prim girl stood still as a fencepost on Rhys Kinnick’s front porch.” Jess Walter, So Far Gone.

“History shows us how to behave.” David McCullough, History Matters (ed. Dorie McCullough Lawson & Michael Hill.)

“The seventeenth century was a tough time to be alive.” Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689.

“The body floats downstream.” Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River.

“In 1991, a generational tale of parking’s role in American life began in Solana Beach, California.” Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

“At least it gives me an excuse for sweating, thought Peter Pascoe, as he scuttled toward the shelter of the first of the two cars parked across the road from number 3.” Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man.

“Robert Langdon awoke peacefully, enjoyed the gentle strains of classical music from his phone’s alarm on the bedside table.” Dan Brown, The Secret of Secrets.

“After a hasty exit, I patted myself down, checking my pockets to see whether I had stashed anything useful.” Hannah Carlson, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.

“In 1959 Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not.” Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop.

“On the southern slopes of Mount Zion, alongside the ruins of biblical Jerusalem, lies a small Protestant cemetery.” Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (translated by Haim Watzman).

“In conversation play, the important thing is to get in early and stay there.” Stephen Potter, Lifemanship: Some Notes on Lifemanship with a Summary of Recent Research in Gamesmanship.

“Every Wednesday afternoon in the laboratory where I used to work, we had an event called journal club.” Chris v. Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food that Isn’t Food.

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Snippets

Raw fish has had cultural significance in Japan. I highly recommend the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but sushi dreams have now spread. Little League World Series players were recently asked questions about their favorite athlete or their dream job. (Retirement was the best answer.) When favorite food was the topic, a surprising number from all over the world replied sushi. That certainly would not have been my answer when I was twelve. Recently I went to a Japanese-named restaurant touted for its sushi, and it was, indeed, very good. The sushi master (do you say sushi chef? Surely not sushi cook.) was named Jesus Hernandez. He hailed from a Mexican town famed for its traditional mole. Go figure.

In Death Comes for the Fat Man by Reginald Hill a character whose family emigrated to the UK after World War II says, “I am glad my family ended here, not the States. They have no rules over there, just laws.”

I am ahead of my time. For decades I have walked around with my shirt tucked in the front for about eight inches with the rest of garment flapping about me on the sides and back. Of course, this was just sloppiness. But I must have been attractive because now I see this look on models and high school and college kids. I am taking credit for the new fashion trend.

Sports seasons often overlap. At this moment, the football season is beginning while baseball still has a long way to go before the World Series. I am reminded of an overlap between the two sports that I encountered on an unusual trip. Phil and I had gone to grade and high school together and played on the same sports teams. In his thirties, Phil went to theological school and became ordained. When he became the minister of a church in the outer reaches of Queens in New York City, he called me. We invited him for Thanksgiving dinner a few times, and he and I got together several other times, but as he became settled in the church and got to know more people there, we drifted apart. Then one day he called and said that he had won a contest. The prize was a trip for two to travel to ballparks around the East Coast. He asked if I would go with him. The invitation was not particularly flattering. He didn’t want to ask anyone from his church because the contest’s sponsor was a beer company, and his (Dutch) Reformed Church frowned on alcohol. Phil continued that he had two brothers, and he did not want to choose between them. And, thus, the invitation descended to me. I accepted. Phil and I were together with about a dozen others from around the country and Canada for five or six days going to major league ballparks. It was great fun. One of our stops was to what then was called Jacobs Field in Cleveland. During the game we chatted with some young guys who were, shall we say, heavily into beer. They insisted again and again without too much slurring that we go to a bar with them near the stadium after the game. We went. I was surprised that upon entrance I saw a picture of Max McGee. And then I saw pictures of Bart Starr, Jerry Kramer, Willie Wood, and Ray Nitschke, all Green Bay Packer players from my youth. Packer memorabilia, mostly jerseys but also some cleats, covered the walls. I saw nothing about the hometown Cleveland Browns, who also had great teams, or any other. I was puzzled and asked one of our new friends about this. He looked at me as if he wanted to say, Duh, and then did say, “This is a Packers bar.” Apparently, that explained everything.

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Snippets

Like many of us, I have had a lot of insect bites. Most are only aggravating—the itching of mosquito bites. But sometimes they are more serious. I got what I thought was a wasp bite on a sandal-shod foot. It felt as if a cigarette was being put out on me. The calf ballooned. The doctor gave me an antibiotic that in due course brought back my lovely looking leg which — in days of yore — drew compliments. Years later I got a bite on my elbow, which did not seem to be anything important. But I developed a fever and soon the temperature was hitting levels that I had seldom had. The elbow became more and more tender, and when it was bumped and I let out a little scream, I finally went to the doctor, who again prescribed an antibiotic. This time it did not work, and I went back to the doctor. He said he was sending me to the hospital. I needed an antibiotic that had to be injected for several days in a row or delivered by an IV drip. He could not do it because his office was closing for summer vacation. I said that I did not want to go to the hospital. The spouse, who was with me, spoke up, “Couldn’t I inject him?” The doctor looked askance, but the spouse told him that she had gone to medical school and had gotten a Ph.D. She continued that she ran a research lab and regularly injected animals. He did not ask with what. He did say, “Maybe it’s possible.” The spouse: “Where does the injection go?” The doctor: “In the ass.” Saucers. The spouse’s eyes became as big as saucers. “Ohhhhhh, I can do that,” she convincingly said, and the doctor consented. She injected me over the next few days, and I got better. The injections hurt, but not much. When they were through, the spouse said, “That was FUN.”

A character in Death Comes for the Fat Man by Reginald Hill gives marital advice: “Never give your wife a surprise she doesn’t know about.”

Our president said recently that Benjamin Netanyahu is a war hero and continued, “I guess I am, too.” His act of martial bravery in his estimation was ordering the bombing of Iran. In the eyes of many including the prosecutors of the International Criminal Court, Netanyahu is a war criminal for Israel’s actions in Gaza. And Trump, who has supported those actions?

A recent article in The New Yorker by David K. Kirkpatrick quotes an ethics expert who says that “when it comes to using his public office to amass personal profits, Trump is a unicorn—no one else even comes close.” Another presidential observer concludes that the Trumps “have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House.” But while Trump’s monetization of public office may far outstrip all others, other presidents have benefited from their presidential actions, including our first chief executive. The Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania sought to prevent taxes on whiskey. George Washington personally led troops to suppress the insurrection. Easterners, including the first president, had long speculated in western lands. Land values soared after Washington’s actions; properties were sold; and profits were taken. Brady J. Crytzer in his book The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis states, “Later, when speaking of the insurrection in terms of his personal wealth, the president admitted, ‘this event having happened at the time it did was fortunate.’”