Monthly Archives: November 2021

Illiterati of the Modern Age # 1

November 9, 2021 – 12:20 pm

Back in the early 1960s I attended a good Catholic grammar school on the South Shore of Boston. Dyslexia was considered a sign of the Devil by the Nuns of Our Lady of the Foothills along with writing with the left or sinister hand. The inability to decode words has been declared incurable by various […]

By Peter | Posted in Education, Internet, language | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Allergy to Silence

November 7, 2021 – 12:44 pm

Last month I staying in Bannok about sixty kilometers from Chai-nat. Every morning I was woken by the village loudspeakers. The announcer read off farming information to the locals. I couldn’t understand a word that he was saying about rice prices. Finally someone pulled the plug and the world was serenaded by a chorus of […]

By Peter | Posted in Thailand | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

SUNDAY QUIETUDE by Peter Nolan Smith

November 6, 2021 – 1:46 pm

Ten years ago I took a young friend to see the Strokes at Saturday Night Live. The host was Miley Cyrus, the Disney teen sensation. The 19 year-old’s current worth is in the hundreds of millions and SNL’s producer followed the svelte brunette’s every move, as if he had plans for the perennial good girl. […]

By Peter | Posted in friends, good, semi-fiction, Traditions | Tagged | Comments (0)

A FLYING DIME by Peter Nolan Smith

November 2, 2021 – 11:55 am

On an June evening in 1939 my uncle and three of his teenage friends exited from Portland’s State Theater’s western matinee of STAGECOACH and JESSE JAMES. The gunfights in the cowboy double bill had had a funny effect on their blood, for while America was still peace, the threat of war loomed across the Atlantic. […]

By Peter | Posted in 40s, Driving, maine, semi-fiction | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Lobstah Roll Badger’s Island

November 2, 2021 – 11:46 am

My younger sister called from her drive to Maine. She was heading north to spend some time on Watchic Lake. I had hoped to join her on the ride, but financial obligations required my staying in New York. She asked me about the Red Sox and I snapped, “I don’t want to talk about them […]

By Peter | Posted in Food, maine | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)