Ten years ago this blog site started as short memoir pieces from my magical '60s and '70s childhood, helmed by my witty and irreverent mother. Nuggets of memory would burble up unexpectedly. I would wonder why they emerged so clearly at that moment and then why my child's brain decided to store them in the vast and dusty warehouse of my mind. It was as if I implicitly knew that this incident was something important to be considered some 50 years later with the benefit of age and experience. I turned these incidents over and over in my mind adding more context and meaning. Why did my father stand on the lawn and gaze at the Good Humor man making home deliveries to the neighbor? Why did my mother insist that I know the arcane rules of baseball, including the infield fly rule? These ruminations coalesced into essays. My blog site was born.

The careful thought given to my memories sharpened my powers of observation. Soon the essays morphed into curiosity-driven pieces about anything, really, that caught my imagination. Commentary about popular culture, nature, our language and the oddities of everyday life expanded my repetroire. All the posts are short (1200 words) and take about 10 minutes to read.  This length fits the attention span of someone reading off a phone or a tablet, creating an ideal distraction for those moments of forced idleness that punctuate our lives. Air travel is one common example.