Music lessons Part II — Aspirations
(Photo is insecure Francine at 12) During the time I was taking piano lessons while practicing at neighbors’ homes (mid-to-late 1950‘s; see prior post), I was also trying to orchestrate little shows that I and the kids on our block might eventually put on for our parents and other children. I was partly inspired by the shows the children put [...]
Music lessons, Part I — Inheriting inclination
Kindergarten, I'm far left second row My mother had a pretty voice and sang to me when I was a toddler. My dad whistled all the time, often “Anchors Aweigh”—he’d been in the US Navy in World War II—and had good pitch and a cheerful disposition. His father called him “The Canary.” We also had a record player [...]
Edinburgh – Haste ye back – Vacationing in Paris & Edinburgh – Part IX Final
Here’s my last, and long, post about our trip in September 2025. In Scotland, they call a meandering lazy drive a “dauner.” We set off on one of those on our Sunday in Edinburgh, and it was a gorgeous sunny clear (and cool) day. We’d been braving a bit of rain now and then on our entire trip, and Edinburgh [...]
Hullo & Slainte to Edinburgh! – Vacationing in Paris & Edinburgh Part VIII
After gypsy jazz the night before in Paris, it was a bit of a challenge to get to Charles de Gaulle airport by 8:00am on a Wednesday morning in late September. Air France is not my favorite airline, but they got us to Auld Reekie (Old Smoky, Edinburgh’s nickname from the days when peat and coal fires filled the air [...]
Our last three days in Paris – Vacationing in Paris & Edinburgh – Part VII
Richard’s cousin Katherine had told us about a walkway Paris had installed atop a no longer used elevated railway, so we decided to check it out on a Sunday afternoon. It’s called Le Coulee Vert, the green gully. That’s a little odd because it’s way up in the air, but that’s the translation we kept getting when we looked it [...]
Plus amusements a Paris – Vacationing in Paris & Edinburgh – Part VI
After a very full day with Richard’s cousins, on the next day, we slept in, barely made it to our hotel’s (expensive but delicious buffet) breakfast, worked out in the pool, and got a late start on gadding about. We moseyed over to Les Deux Magots (The Two Flies, as in, two flies on the wall discussing “don’t you wish [...]
Un jour avec les cousins – Vacationing in Paris and Edinburgh – Part V
On our seventh day in Paris, Richard’s cousins (and we’re talking distant, like about 4th or 5th cousins) had come to see us. They live in a village in eastern France about an hour’s drive from Strasbourg, the farthest east French city, right near the German border. Bernard and Eliane took the train, which is about a three or four [...]
Le parfum a Paris–Vacationing in Paris and Edinburgh–Part IV
Although our trip was lovely overall, we encountered another disappointment in addition to my physical difficulties in using my scooter on the slanted sidewalks. So, I’ll share this with you just so that you know that travel regrets don’t always turn out so badly. Also, this is the kind of digressive adventure available when staying in one location for more than [...]