When I was happy #3

03Mar12

My father’s German and doesn’t speak much English. That didn’t stop him buying a share of a buffalo farm in Saskatchewan in 1998. This resulted in friendships and visits. It’s one of his favorite places on earth, and once I started visiting also became one of mine. Now, years later, the farm is sold, and [...]

Filed under: 2000s, Father, Happiness, Travel   |  Closed
Tags: father, happiness, Lake Montreal, road trip, Saskatchewan

When I was happy #1

27Feb12

Someone (I think it was an Arab Emperor) once said that if you add up all the truly happy moments in your life you’ll find that they’ll add up to only a few hours. It seemed an accurate observation at the time when I read it. It also now has me making a list of [...]

Filed under: 2000s, Happiness, Music, Travel   |  Closed
Tags: Denver, Ethiopian music, happiness, sunrise, taxi

Family, lost and found

17Feb12

You might have noticed at this point that my family was more of the “unhappy in its own way” kind. Helmed by parents whose own parents had never shown them much affection, which meant they never learned how dispense it themselves, my family was an archipelago of six individuals with few bonds. We were four [...]

Filed under: 2000s, Childhood, Germany, Third Reich, World War II, Youth   |  Closed
Tags: Brighton Beach, family, friendship, isolation, loss, mortality, sadness, sisters, unhappiness

The love that won’t shut up

29Jan12

29th of January 2012 is 13 years to the day when Robert Dickerson died, of liver failure caused by Hepatitis C. Having worked on a project for a new Hep C drug last year, and having talked to a lot of people with the disease, I now really understand what that means: brutal and miserable. [...]

Filed under: 2000s, Movies, Music   |  Closed
Tags: 2000, Benjamin, Hepatitis C, mortality, movie, Opal Foxx Quartet, Robert Dickerson, Smoke