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By WILLEM LANGE

When my wife and I were married, back in 1959, our prospects were so grim that the priest to whom we went for our church-mandated counseling gave our union — “frankly,” he said — a one-in-10 chance of survival. She went to work in an S&H Green Stamp...

By WILLEM LANGE

Tom’s Taxi, of Lynn, Massachusetts, has been faithful as the sun for us. If you tell them that one of you uses a cane, they usually send a van. Which I do, and which they did. About half an hour later we pulled up in front of Portugal Airlines, paid...

By WILLEM LANGE

This is written in the last days of April. From my office window, the yard and the field and the woods beyond seem to be catching their breath before tackling what’s always come next. Out back, the air on this sunny day is alive with birdsong. So far...

By WILLEM LANGE

The dying day breeze stirs only the treetops, and an evening stillness descends upon the woods. I sit on a bench in the park, as quiet myself as our surroundings. Kiki, restless as ever, alternates between the bench and my lap and short sniffing...

By WILLEM LANGE

Living three and a half hours apart, as we do, my dear friend Bea and I get to see each other about every two weeks or so, on average. This is almost without doubt an ideal arrangement, as our lifestyles are quite different, and neither of us could...

By WILLEM LANGE

The sky has always been a source of wonder for us earthbound folks. For some of us who are, shall we say, more earthbound, it’s a source of portents, omens, and myths. What we call thunderstorms and explain as electrically charged clouds used to be...

By WILLEM LANGE

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s...

By WILLEM LANGE

Our cab arrived at 4:40 a.m. on the dot and deposited us at the entrance to United Airlines about 5:30. Check-in was amazingly easy, and the trek to our gate likewise. We took off from Logan also on the dot — it seems to be true that the earlier in...

By WILLEM LANGE

This coming Saturday morning, a Boeing 737 Max 8 bound for Denver will be taking off (or at least is scheduled to be taking off) from Logan Airport at 7:19 a.m. This means that my intrepid traveling companion, Bea, and I need to be at the United...

By WILLEM LANGE

It’s likely the unavoidable fate of both teenagers and golden-agers that most news reporters and writers are aspiring 20-somethings eager to make splashes. Thus, if a young person with a newly minted driver’s license loses control of their vehicle on...

By WILLEM LANGE

Owing to the recent development of a relationship with a much younger lady (of only 76), I’ve been traveling every so often to Nahant, Mass., a few miles north of Boston, for visits. Being a bit of a country rube, I’ve been quite aware of the...

By WILLEM LANGE

If you gad about enough and try to do at least one new thing a week, you’re bound to encounter interesting people, educational experiences and exciting situations. A perfect proof of that came up for me last summer, when I trundled across New England...

By WILLEM LANGE

During the excitement of Valentine’s Day and the nocturnal activities of the characters who covered the windows of downtown Montpelier with hundreds of red hearts, a significant birthday passed almost unnoticed.While here in the north country of New...

By WILLEM LANGE

Change, we have been told, is the only constant. In recent years, we’ve come to believe, change is accelerating at a dizzy pace. And how many times have we heard the phrase “the good old days”?The good old days, I always muse, before antibiotics and...

By WILLEM LANGE

Our culture is pretty thoroughly saddled with rituals and celebrations that originated in our distant, non-scientific past, when we considered phenomena the result of supernatural intervention. I guess maybe these rites seem cute or quirky, and are...

By WILLEM LANGE

Hagar and I dove into the big rotary at the foot of the Nahant Causeway, trying to judge the volume of traffic on a Sunday noon. The friendly voice of Siri spoke to me in her Irish accent from the dashboard: “At the roundabout, take the first exit...

By WILLEM LANGE

It had been a lovely weekend, courtesy of Martin Luther King, Jr. — lots of pleasant conversation and snacks in the two chairs in the office, supper at Julio’s on Friday, lunch at the Wayside on Saturday, shopping for groceries at the Chopper. Icy...

By WILLEM LANGE

The narration, a modern version of the second chapter of Luke, began the old familiar Christmas story. Mary and Joseph shuffled down the church aisle on cue, Mary cuddling a bundle clearly intended to be the baby Jesus, and Joseph strangely...

By WILLEM LANGE

For all of your days be prepared, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear — When you are the hammer, strike. — Edwin MarkhamThat seemed likes a pleasant little nostrum when I was in high school, so I took it under advisement and tucked...

By WILLEM LANGE

It’s for years irritated me that my fellow countrymen know so little about their next-door neighbor to the north. When my friends and I in the Geriatric Adventure Society first began traveling to the Arctic for our biennial canoe trips on the...