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By WILLEM LANGE

 It was always a pleasure, at the beginning formation of Boy Scout meetings, to respond to the command, “Report!” with, “All present or accounted for, sir.” Now, over 75 years later, it’s still very satisfactory to count noses in the airline gate area...

By WILLEM LANGE

It’s often characterized as a British officers’ drinking song, but it’s hardly that. “The Anacreontic Song” was the official song of an 18th century club of London “wealthy men of social rank” that met monthly for banquets, musical performances and...

By WILLEM LANGE

The other day — a bluebird day if ever there was one: temperature in the 70s; bright blue sky, robins on the lawn, coltsfoot rioting along the driveway — I shuffled tentatively across the newly mud-free yard to the barnlike garage where the cars have...

By WILLEM LANGE

If there were a Shakespearean stage direction for the arch-conservative wing of American politics as it is currently constituted, it would be: “Exeunt stage right, scattering petards.”How in the world any group can expect to prevail consistently among...

By WILLEM LANGE

American Airlines Flight 6059 to Burlington swung wide over Lake Champlain and approached the airport from the north, delightfully early, explaining without words why we were early: a strong south wind all the way from Philadelphia. A wheelchair was...

By WILLEM LANGE

The switch from nursing home to personal home went off without a hitch. The multiple family members here to help effect it then left one by one, till I’m down to: Kiki; Herschel, my four-wheel, silk-smooth walker; and Hagar, the hybrid SUV parked 2...

By WILLEM LANGE

January 2023 was a month of Sundays, ending abruptly on the 29th with a fourth and final Sunday fall on ice underfoot. My friend Bea and I left my house for church that morning, and that was the last time I saw the house till the day after yesterday,...

By WILLEM LANGE

I just bought a brand-new candy apple red four-wheel-drive sport model, big-wheeled walker. Its name is Herschel, and it will replace my old walker, which features two small wheels and two pierced tennis balls. In him I am currently terrorizing the...

By WILLEM LANGE

This piece will be perforce much shorter than my usual exhalation. I’m writing it flat on my back in a hospital in Berlin, Vt. My lovely daughter Martha is typing this as I attempt to pull together the events of the last four weeks.In my never-ending...

By WILLEM LANGE

My first experience with surgery and general anesthesia occurred in 1949, at the so-called Children’s Hospital in Albany, N.Y. My grandfather, an old-fashioned Albany apothecary, probably had connections there, and my father, a clergyman, probably got...

By WILLEM LANGE

Foghorn? Right here! Give it a toot; make sure it’s working. Thank you. Bilge pump? Port side of centerboard trunk. Is it working? I don’t know. Two plastic buckets? Right here! Fill one of ’em to check if the bilge pump’s working. Good. Charts?And so...