Christopher Donahue

Last Wednesday, I went flying in a helicopter for my birthday. I always wanted to learn to fly,  so I signed up for an introductory helicopter piloting lesson to celebrate the big day.

It was a blast! We went up in a Robinson 22 and flew around the countryside north of Boston. The helicopter was tiny and it felt like we were strapping it on. The weather was perfect: Hot and sunny. We flew with the doors removed and were comfortable in shirtsleeves.

We buzzed along like a giant dragon-fly. We even hovered over a swamp, albeit at a couple of thousand feet. The view was just 360 degrees of wonderful. And though it might sound like a cliché, the  feeling of actually being able to go wherever you wanted was intoxicating. Looking down at the ribbon of Route 95 disappearing into the distance in both directions, you couldn’t help noticing the tiny cars and trucks whizzing along. Even the tractor-trailers looked micro.  Not like ants. Beetles maybe.

Later that evening, after a surprise birthday dinner organized by my wife, I was returning home on the same highway after dropping a friend off.  It was late and I was happily lost in thought. A silver car, bright and shiny in my headlights, flicked on its yellow directional to signal to me it was changing lanes. I thought about how primitive yet effective it was to signal simply by using lights. The silver car was like a big lightning-bug racing through the dark countryside on a summer night. We all were.

I wished I were flying a helicopter. I would have been home sooner.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

July is the finest month.

At least it is in New England. The uninformed sometimes dispute this fact, but they are quite simply wrong. From my growing years of experience I can assure the reader that July is indeed the best month of the year.

July is in the running to be the best month, because it is in the best season of the year. And summer is the best season because it is the only season that you wish could last forever.  There are beautiful days in spring, fall and winter. But it is only the long, languid days of summer in which you wish you could stop time and just enjoy them forever.

July is the best month because it has the most number of perfect summer days. Brilliant sunshine. The vibrant green and blue of plants and sky. Hot or humid or not. And not one hint of the decline of autumn.

July is the best.

And it has my birthday.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

In the dark, I waited for a thunderstorm to arrive and break the humidity. The stifling air was still, hot and thick. The approaching storm rumbled mightily in the distance. In the still gloom, I noticed the season’s  first lightning bug waft its way high into the trees.

And then the rain came. At first, a distant rushing sound that drew closer. Then a downpour, lashing wind,  blinding flashes of lightning. I stepped back form the edge of the porch so I didn’t get soaked. It became cool.

Summer has arrived. The blistering heat, the sweltering humidity.  And cooling thunderstorms.

Beautiful.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

I love science.  Science has the answer to all the world’s problems.  Well, not really, but any day now.  Trust Science! They have really, really, smart people working on all the problems that trouble humankind.  Unfortunately, the same people are responsible for half the world’s problems but hey, who’s counting?

Let’s take a look at Science’s latest mind blowing breakthrough: cloning a Woolly Mammoth.  This is really good news.  Many of us less educated and scientifically challenged folk thought the big problems facing the world were poverty, war, starvation, terrorism, the environment etc…little did we know a more pressing matter was  the eons-long shortage of Woolly Mammoths.

When you think about it, the timing of this development just can’t be beat. Thanks to global warming, brought to you by Science not knowing what it was doing a hundred years ago,  the natural sub-arctic habitat of the Woolly Mammoth is vanishing just in time for scientists to clone more of the shaggy-coated beasts.  Think about it. Thanks to Science, Wooly Mammoths will be the first animals to go extinct TWICE!

Darwin would be so proud!

Speaking of making Darwin proud, let’s remember to show how smart we are by not questioning what scientists do, and by thanking them for:  nuclear and biological weapons, nuclear reactors built on earthquake faults (see Fukushima), increased cancer rates from industrialization, and flying Justin Bieber into space while one billion people go to bed hungry every night.

Remember,  Science has the answer to all the world’s problems.

Unfortunately, they are responsible for half of them.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

Vermont this weekend was cold, windswept and rainy. Not a really great kickoff to the unofficial start of summer that is Memorial Day weekend.

It snowed on the higher elevations but I didn’t actually see it.  People told me about it. I believed them.  It was just cold and rainy where we were, in an old farm house on a dirt road in the National Forest. The forest loved it.  All the plants and trees were lush and leafy.

We went down to the little country market to get some groceries and other sundries.  It is a little market by the over-developed urban standards we are used to. What we love about Vermont is you can come out of a little grocery store and be greeted by a stunning view, and this store was no exception.

Beyond the parking lot was a horse pasture with a picture post-card big, old red barn and behind that, rolling, green hills receding in the distance.  It was still cold and rainy

In the horse pasture, there were probably a dozen horses interspersed all over the field. The herds was mostly mares, with a few young foals mixed in, and one stallion presumably.  The wet from the rain stained their backs a darker brown, almost black, and there were dark stripes were the rivulets of rain ran off their coats entirely. The rain didn’t seem to bother them at all. They just munched the bright green grass and stood in the drizzle.

That is, until we walked up to the fence. Obviously looking for something good to eat, the whole herd wheeled and trotted to us like we were old friends.

The cold rain didn’t bother them at all and by then, we had forgotten about it too.

Copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

The other night I was riding home after a long day at work on the subway, or the T as it is known in these parts. Life is getting somewhat back to normal here in Boston after the horror of the Marathon Bombing a month ago. I was tired and dozing off a bit. The subway car was its usual cacophony of intermittent mechanical screeches and rumbles, people conversing with one another, and people talking on their cell phones.

I closed my eyes and for some reason imagined how horrible it would be if a bomb went off right then.  The flash of the blast, the lights going off, the subway car crashing to a stop. The horror of being trapped under ground, injured, in the dark.

I opened my eyes, looked around, and dismissed those thoughts and my apparently latent fears. It was a normal commute home. And there was nothing I could do if something bad was about to happen anyway.

A little girl sat next to me with her grandmother. She had blonde curly hair, a red skirt of some fashion, white leggings and black shoes. She must have been four or five. Her grandmother had a big, old fashioned hair-do. Lots of make-up, jewelry and what I seem to recall as cat-eye glasses. The little girl was looking over her shoulder out the window of the subway car. She eventually turned all the way around in her seat to look out.

I closed my eyes and started to doze again. The little girl had been quiet but began talking to her grandmother. For some reason this seemed surprising. I couldn’t understand what they were saying because they were speaking in a language I didn’t know. I think it was Russian. At first the little girl would just say a few things and the grandmother would respond. Then the little girl became more talkative with the grandmother concurring or encouraging her now and then. They spoke in quite tones, and I couldn’t understand a word they said.

I opened my eyes. We were going through a tunnel again. The dark of the tunnel walls allowed me to see a faint reflection of myself in the window across the car from me. My doppelganger floated above the unsuspecting heads of the passengers facing me.

Like a ghost hurtling toward a finish of some sort.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

April has been crueler than usual in these here parts, what with the vicious terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. But things are beginning to return to normal in this leafy outer-city part of Beantown. And nothing says return to normal more than a sighting of the rambling and rollicking Cave Man of Roslindale!

Or to put it another way …I’ve wanted to write about the Cave-Man of Roslindale for a long time and tonight is the night!

Let me set the primordial stage. I live and work in Boston and there are plenty of men and women who could pass for cave-men or cave-women.  I see them all the time. At this point let me dispel any inference of political incorrectness on your part by stating that race, creed, color, religion, national origin and/or sexual preference, do not matter when one considers whether a person looks like a cave man or woman. Cave men were/are representative of all people even if one’s creed, religion etcetera…etc…did not exist in cave times. That’s just how it was…and is.

Now specifically, let me re-focus this post on a particular individual who I see quite regularly and who any rational person would agree bears a striking resemblance to a Neanderthal: The Cave Man of Roslindale!

I first noticed the Cave Man while driving to work one morning.  It was a very chilly and I couldn’t help but notice a guy who looked to be in his sixties, jogging shirtless in the freezing weather. He was really trucking along at a good pace and intermittently blowing steam, and the occasional blast of snots, out of his nostrils. But what was really remarkable about this guy was that he could run shirtless in freezing weather because he was REALLY FREAKIN’ HAIRY!  He was so hairy he had hair growing out of his should blades! Hair growing on his arms, never mind his hirsute chest! He had hair growing on hair. The guy was  freakish-hairy everywhere but on his male patterned-bald head! It was incredible!

At that very moment I said to myself, “that guy looks like a cave man!”

Not surprisingly, the Cave Man of Roslindale dresses “Old School.”  The shorts he wears look to be borrowed  from the ’86 Celtics and are cut in such a fashion one doesn’t wonder where they got the term “shorts”. They could pass as swim trunks.  Hell, they might actually be swim trunks.  Also, the Cave Man wears non-flashy running shoes with old school white gym socks- the kind that stick out of the shoe and covers one’s ankle.  The Cave Man does not wear low-cut socks that back in the day were only worn by women and were called peds but are now worn by men but are still peds. 

All and all, I have to give The Cave Man of Roslindale credit. I see him out there in all kinds of weather, all year round. And I think any of us would be lucky to be in that good of shape at his age.

Ramble on Caveman! Ramble on!

 copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

What an incredible day here in Boston. An incredible week actually.

It was incredible there was a vicious terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. It was incredible three innocent people (including an 8 year old child) were blown to bits. It was incredible some who survived had both legs blown off. It was incredible some survivors had one leg blown off. It was incredible two brothers each lost a leg.

And on and on…

It was incredible to wake up this morning and find out the terrorists and cops had a rolling gun battle while I was sleeping. It was incredible to find out I had a day off because the T (the Boston Subway) had been shut down. It was incredible to find out I really had a day off because the Governor said I had to stay home. It was incredible to think I better stay inside because there really might be some bombs out there ready to kill me.

It was incredible to think two young guys who lived in Boston for the last ten years would grow to have such a disregard for innocent lives they would randomly kill innocent people. It was incredible law enforcement would turn out in such force.

And it was incredible they took the last bomber-brother alive.

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

It is Holy Saturday Evening. For those uninitiated with Catholic beliefs, Holy Saturday falls between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In a break with tradition, newly elected Pope Francis has decreed all three are now followed immediately by Stormy Monday.

Of course, tuesday’s just as bad…ba da da BOOM!

copyright 2013 Magnus Incognito

There are less than 12 hours left of winter now, and it is in these waning moments of the most harsh of seasons that I grow a bit whistful.

March has indeed been a march!

First, I would like to take responsibility for antagonizing Old Man Winter, back in February, and causing him to really give New England a wintry thrashing these past several weeks. It has all been my fault. No snowstorm better demonstrated Old Man Winter returning to top form better than the record setting blizzard of February 9-10. After that, there were light snowfalls, but my winter hat goes off for the sneak attack of March 8th, during which the Old Man dumped an unexpected foot of snow on the region just in time for the morning rush hour. That one was really depressing. The forecasters missed the call entirely. I found myself late for work and snow-blowing the driveway all pissed off and wearing a neck-tie. Great start to the day.

Today’s weather on the last full day of winter was fittingly terrible. We awoke to a 8 inches of snow that needed blowing before work. The rest of the day was gale force winds with alternating snow and freezing rain. A real mess.

And now spring is hours away, at least astronomical spring. It will still be a few weeks before pleasant weather becomes the norm.

But after this nasty winter weather, how can April possibly be the cruelest month?

copyright 2012 Magnus Incognito