25 September 1066

Some say that the Viking Age died 25 September 1066 at Stamford Bridge, on the River Derwent east of York, along with Haraldr Sigurðarson, called harðráða, king of Norway. Harald was a formidable and ruthless warrior. Half-brother to King Ólafr Haraldsson, later called Saint Olaf, he was 15 when he fought among Olaf’s army in [...]

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A Tale of Prairie Dogs

Early in 1959 some former residents of Rochelle, former clients of my father’s, asked him to come to Canada to help with a legal problem concerning their farms. My father had no experience with, or special knowledge of, Canadian law, but the clients wanted someone they knew and trusted, and who could speak the language [...]

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National Gallery Ledge Piece

Another piece we encountered on our recent visit to the National Gallery of Art — Anthony Caro’s “National Gallery Ledge Piece”. It has a charmingly direct name for a sculpture, I think. A commissioned work, it is a permanent feature on a ledge above the staircase in the National Gallery’s East Building.

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Fantoft Stavkirke

Fantoft stavkirke, built around 1150 in Fortun, Sogn, Norway, during the great era of wooden church construction in the 12th Century. By the 19th Century most communities were replacing their old stave churches with more modern, usually larger, structures, and by the end of the century most of the old buildings were gone. It is [...]

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Winter, so to speak

In August, Jacquie suggested that we meet in Washington, D.C., to see the exhibition of Edvard Munch prints at the National Gallery of Art. I’ve been a sucker for Munch since at least 1968, when I visited the Munch Museum in Oslo for the first time. In 2001 I fearlessly led my family on a [...]

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A Source of the Wild West

A touch of civic pride, history, and myth in Troy Grove, La Salle County, Illinois, birthplace of James Butler (“Wild Bill”) Hickcok accompanied by a heroic image, which, like Hickok’s heroic reputation, has seen better days. Troy Grove, once known as Homer, is a tiny village in north central Illinois, about 2 1/2 miles east [...]

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Hotel Ponder 1947

22 June 2008, Amite, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. Near the beginning of our journey up old U.S. 51 in June 2008 we came upon the Ponder Hotel. The building, sitting across the railroad tracks from the highway, did not instantly grab my attention, but its name struck my fancy and the inclusion of 1947 on its [...]

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The Hewer

George Grey Barnard, 1904. Photographed in Cairo, Illinois, June 2008, while we were touring old U.S. 51

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Seul Choix Point Light

Seul Choix Point Light, nearly the only choice for harbor from a storm at the top of Lake Michigan, a scene from our trip through the Upper Peninsula in June 2008. Some say that the lighthouse is haunted.

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På Fløyen

Here’s a picture from our visit to Norway in June 2001. Our week in Bergen came roughly in the middle of the trip. On 14 June it rained only a little bit, so we rode Fløibanen from the center of Bergen to the top of the mountain for the famous view from above the city. [...]

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