The British inventor Lord Kelvin famously said that if you can’t measure something, “your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.” I heartily disagree. The most important things in […]

Roughly 80 percent of American adults drink alcohol. It is by far the most destructive drug in our society but also the most enjoyed, and many would agree its moderate […]

I was born in Harrisburg, Pa. and grew up there around the middle of the last century. In my young life, I observed the adults around me: the women were […]

A wedding party celebrated on a large East End deck on a sunny Sunday afternoon and on into a moonlit evening, with a live local band — Steve Morgan and […]

Many years ago — 55, to be exact — I was on the island of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea. I had met a young British woman there, and we […]

On a still day in late March out at Herring Cove Beach, dozens of people faced the water. Low voices traveled over the sand. The crowd was hushed, as it […]

I have been away from my desk. Instead of writing a column, I took a child for a walk on the beach. It was early morning low tide. She is […]

I have the greatest respect for John Kerry, our former senator, presidential candidate, and now President Biden’s special envoy for climate. But I must disagree with him on one significant […]

As I write this, it is hot, damned hot, insufferably hot. I can take a bit of heat in the daytime, but at night it is just too much. What […]

The things we celebrate reveal a great deal about us: who we are or who we would like to be. This weekend is the Portuguese Festival and the Blessing of […]

The weather was strange that March day I first visited my future grave. The morning was clear and balmy, but by afternoon the sky had turned steel gray, and, as […]

Sometimes a day is more than a day. Sometimes the events and experiences of a single day transform it into something larger. I had such a day last week. First […]

It’s spring, and the town comes more alive, with increasing numbers of visitors arriving. Perhaps, like me, you are coming out of the cloistered, monkish existence of the past six […]

On an overcast spring afternoon in 1968, I stood on the shoulder of Route 6, outside Hyannis, with my thumb out. After about 20 minutes, the drizzle began, the sparse […]