Tempus Fugit: or, Longing for All My Yesterdays in the Summer of ’22


Time’s Relentless March “It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.” ― Ally Condie, Matched As August 2022 reaches the two-thirds of the month mark and meteorological fall waits in the seasonal wings, my thoughts turn once again to the past, especially to theContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: or, Longing for All My Yesterdays in the Summer of ’22”

Tempus Fugit – August of 1972 Edition: The End of Summer Vacation is Nigh & Back-to-School Angst


Tempus Fugit “I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.” ― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems Fifty years ago this month, my mom, my older half-sister Vicky (who had recently rejoined us after a brief but disastrous attempt to live with our maternal grandaunt Gabriela and stay in Bogota),Continue reading “Tempus Fugit – August of 1972 Edition: The End of Summer Vacation is Nigh & Back-to-School Angst”

Tempus Fugit – 1972 Edition, or: Musings on the Ephemeral, Imperfect, and Malleable Nature of Memory


“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.” ― Guy de Maupassant As the Dog Days of Summer 2022 near their finale – they began on Sunday, July 3, and will end on Thursday – I am struck by the concepts of memory, howContinue reading “Tempus Fugit – 1972 Edition, or: Musings on the Ephemeral, Imperfect, and Malleable Nature of Memory”

Tempus Fugit – Dog Days of Summer 1972 Edition: Those Long, Hot Sundays of Yesteryear


It’s another scorching hot Sunday in the Tampa Bay area – outside, it’s mostly sunny and the temperature is 90°F/32°C, and the heat index is higher at 100°F/38°C. There is a huge clubhouse/pool complex that residents of the community have access to, but (a) I don’t like going there alone, and (b) the weather forecastContinue reading “Tempus Fugit – Dog Days of Summer 1972 Edition: Those Long, Hot Sundays of Yesteryear”

Tempus Fugit: Remembering the Dog Days of Summer – 1972 Edition


As the Dog Days of summer – July 3 to August 11 – draw ever nearer to an end (until, next year), I find myself trying to remember more details from my first summer in Florida after Mom and I returned from Bogota in mid-spring of 1972. Until this Golden Anniversary year, I had notContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: Remembering the Dog Days of Summer – 1972 Edition”

On Books & Reading, or: Slow Progress with My TBR List is the New Reality for Me


“I cannot live without books.”  ― Thomas Jefferson Well, it’s August 1, 2022, Dear Reader. Another month has receded in life’s rear-view mirror, while another begins. As you know, I have been a reader for as long as I can remember. Even though I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, andContinue reading “On Books & Reading, or: Slow Progress with My TBR List is the New Reality for Me”

Tempus Fugit, or: That Endless Summer of 1972 – Transitions, Changes, and Memories


Tempus fugit. I am, as of late, preoccupied by the passage of time. Tempus fugit weighs heavily on my mind on this, my 50th consecutive summer since my mom, my older half-sister, and I moved back to the United States after living for six years in Bogota, Colombia. As you’ve probably noticed – if youContinue reading “Tempus Fugit, or: That Endless Summer of 1972 – Transitions, Changes, and Memories”

Tempus Fugit: July 1972, or: More Fragmented Memories from 50 Summers Ago


“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.”― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones 50 summers ago, I was almost nine-and-a-half years old and getting accustomed to living in the hot, humid, and often rainy conditions in Miami after living for six years in the colder climate of Bogota, Colombia, a huge metropolisContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: July 1972, or: More Fragmented Memories from 50 Summers Ago”

Tempus Fugit: July of 1972, or: Things I Remember from Midsummer of ’72


Tempus Fugit. It’s hard to believe, but 50 Julys ago, I was a nine-year-old boy, living in South Florida with my widowed mother in a small apartment in Sweetwater far removed from the lifestyle – and the family we left behind – we had enjoyed in Bogota, Colombia. Four months earlier, less than a weekContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: July of 1972, or: Things I Remember from Midsummer of ’72”

Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, July 12, 2022, or: Memories, Congressional Hearings, and a Book Recommendation


Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s afternoon in Lithia, Florida, on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. It is a torrid summer day in the Tampa Bay area. As I write this, the temperature is 90°F (32°C) under cloudy skies. With humidity at 63% and the wind blowing from the south-southwest at 11 MPH (17 KM/H), the heatContinue reading “Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, July 12, 2022, or: Memories, Congressional Hearings, and a Book Recommendation”