Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne For the past four days we’ve traveled around eastern Tennessee and I found the menus to be remarkably similar. Perhaps it was because we wanted to take in the locally owned restaurants, and for the most part didn’t visit chains. But at these family-style restaurants, there were some things that stayed exactly the same, unlike in Massachusetts where every restaurant seems to want to do it their own independent New England way. Here is what is
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne “A knife is what you make it,” said Michael Zavasky, brandishing a gigantic English fighting sword. “It’s universal. Women and children used to carry knives … .everyone had one.” We stood on the top floor of Smoky Mountain Knife Works, a giant edifice dedicated to anything with a blade and a store that’s hard to leave once you start examining the Hessian soldier buttons, dinosaur eggs and the display of homemade prison shanks. Zavasky is clearly at home
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne Mountain biking is a sport that to the uninitiated, might seem to be made for the young. It's sometimes an extreme sport, with bruised knees, wild turns, and stomach-wrenching dips. But there is a place on the seat of a mountain bike for someone who was born in the 1950s. You just have to use your brakes and find the right place to ride. Tuesday I joined a few of my peers to zoom down a fantastic new
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne I’m settling into a comfortable Hampton Inn in Kodak, Tenn., where from my window I can see the green field of the home of the Tennessee Smokies, a AA affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. We got to enjoy a game Monday night when the home team trounced the visiting Montgomery Biscuits. Sitting right down front, it was baseball at its best, with the typical minor league shenanigans like the twisted bat race where youngsters spin around
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne Ever since 1990, when I first moved to South Deerfield, I’ve been going to the dump. Never hired anyone to take out my papers and my trash. No, I’d go, loading up for many years my tired old Toyota Avalon, or, after 2006, my trusty trash day pickup truck. It seems there is something every week that requires the use of a truck, so I am always glad that I kept the truck after the cafe closed
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne Whenever I think about moving, I always think about the Seinfeld episode where Jerry befriends Keith Hernandez of the Mets, and is confronted with that age old dilemma ... what's the line about helping friends move? Jerry's so flattered by being befriended by the famous athlete that he almost says yes. Then Keith begins to tell him exactly what he's gotten into."There are some heavy pieces of furniture, and about five staircases," he says. Jerry regrets ever
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne It was a whirlwind of a trip down to New York City to meet a large group of tourism officials from Canada. Their goal was to network with journalists like me to pitch story ideas about the vast country. Our job was to visit as many as we could in 15 minute speed-dating sessions and find out how well we could match their needs. What I came away with the most, besides how amazingly friendly and open
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne I got a call from a telemarketer just after I'd washed my hands. He wanted to sell me a chimney sweep, but I'd just finished cleaning my chimney using a clever gadget I saw on TV. Really. We were watching the PBS show "This Old House," and at the end of the show they always have a segment called "What is It?" The hosts held up something that looked like a cheerleader's pom-pom ... which we discovered
Walking the beat By Ellie Cook Perhaps you’ve seen a poster around town about a lost dog? It’s almost certain that you have, in fact — dog tracker Abby Rieser has put up some 450 fliers for a lost Shiba Inu. Here’s the thing, though: this little female is skittish in the extreme and has been gone so long she’s certainly gone feral. Plus, oh dear, she was never spayed and her owner thinks she might be in heat. Before we go any further, this is
Readuponit: Travel and Voracious Reading By Max Hartshorne On Monday night, as I sat down to watch the finals of the Final Four, I thought about Bluetooth. This is the first time I’ve ever used a wireless keyboard, but boy … do I like it. I have the iPad piled up against the wall, and the keyboard fits easily in my easy chair. I think I know what my next computer will be. With this Bluetooth setup, I think you really can get away with
