In Memoriam: The Death of a Loved One

From the archives

In a world where there are so many tragic events  ̶  from the father who lost his wife and daughter when he was 30 and raised his two sons as a single parent, only to lose a son when he became a grown up, to a young boy who, at 5, lost his father to tribal warfare in Ruanda ̶  what does the loss of one tree matter?

Earlier this month, crisscrossing Texas by car, time and again, I recall the morning I was driving from Dallas to Houston and saw a large, mature oak tree in a field that had toppled over from the rain. I was going 65-70 and as I saw the newly fallen giant, I felt a sharp pain inside. Still green, still hopeful from a Spring filled with energy, this tree wouldn’t see another autumn.

A few weeks later, driving by the same spot, the tree was brown and lifeless now. There was none of that “It‘s still green, it might just be sleeping on its side” pretend one does to internally forestall the inevitable reality of death.

Is Your Favorite Italian Wine ‘Coded?’

It seems "things being coded" is all the rage these days. My preferred AI overview posits coded thusly:

In the context of social media slang, “coded” means that someone, something, or a behavior embodies or resembles a specific character, stereotype, or archetype. It's a way of using recognizable traits to make quick, playful connections and associations, often without explicitly naming the reference.

Jumping off from that point, it got me wondering if Italian wine is coded in these days of disruption. Almost anything can be, especially when one trawls the eddies of social media. Here’s what I have surmised from my brief but spectacular subterranean foray into the dark world of the coded.

An American in Rome – Can a world leader reshape the long tail of Italian wine?

By now the world knows there is a new pope and most of us have become acquainted with him, if just superficially. He, no doubt, will alter the conversation for peace in the world, which has been perched precariously over a precipice, caused by the wants and desires of men.

While the dance cards of peace and humanity and civility and truth and, while we’re at it, reality, get shuffled here in the 21^st century, what about little ‘ol Italian wine? Can Pope Leo XIV reignite the fortunes of growth for this sputtering agro-economic powerhouse? I’m sure there are a few households in Italy where the candles are burning, the altars are set and the prayers are coming at a feverish pace. Yeah, I’m in the “thoughts and prayers” stage over this matter.

A Master Plan for the Master Class

The decade we’re in started in 2020, and it was then that heightened consciousness was brought to racial injustices, and covered many aspects of life, from the way we talk about housing to the language that we use in general.

It was then that the term “Master Bedroom” had a light shone upon it as being indicative of those invisible prejudices we’ve lived with, seemingly, all our lives.