Columns

At the top of the stairs in my uncle’s house, a dusty bobcat once stood guard.
It was stuffed — taxidermied — its lips drawn back in a frozen snarl, and its big feet braced for a fight it had already lost.
In my growing-up years, this silent siren had the power to draw me and my cousins in fascination en masse up the staircase — and, when we were alone with it, to repel us in fear.
Bobcats still exist in the wild, although I have never seen one.
Some creatures simply are no more.

Taking part in a scavenger hunt has always sounded like fun.

Taking part in a scavenger hunt that breaks a world record and has the potential of winning world class trip sounds even better.

Not only do the participants get a chance to help break the world record, which is cool in itself, but also winners will go to Rome, which for me would be my first visit outside the United States.

You know, gentle reader, the longer we live the more we become convinced that the Founding Fathers should have made it one of the prerequisites of being President of these United States that all candidates there for must be foundlings.

In our own time we have seen how John F. Kennedy’s presidency was shaped and moulded by the influence of his father, Ambassador Joe Kennedy.

My friend Joe was on the road for Thanksgiving.

His mother died this spring, and his father died some years back, so he wasn’t spending the holiday with family.

Instead, he headed to Memphis. Next month, he will be starting a new life as a fundraiser for a downtown hospital that sorely needs his skills.

I have mixed feelings about this.