The photo I’ve placed above this post, I’ve placed simply because I like it — it says “Britain” to me and, more specifically, “London.” I have it in a London journal today, found here.
Let’s have some mail. In a column two or three weeks ago, I had a note on Lucianne Goldberg.
Once, years ago, we invited her and Sid to dinner. She responded by saying, “Throw another haunch on the fire, we’re coming over.” I’ve always loved that: “Throw another haunch on the fire.” They were such delightful company, the Goldbergs, and unique.
A reader writes,
I miss personal visits. I’m afraid they’re going the way of the dinosaur. My parents, in the 1960s South, would just get in their car (with me, a kiddo, in tow) on Sunday afternoons after lunch and show up at a friend’s house — no phone call, no nothin’. The friend could always have said, “Not a good time,” but they never did. The host so valued spending time with friends, they just stopped whatever they were doing and welcomed us in. If they had family in town, well, the host just made introductions all around.
Does this seem horrifying to you? Not to me. It may be a “Southern thang” or just my off-the-charts extroversion — but I loved it.
Another reader writes,
I am a transplant and was surprised to learn that Osceola, Ark. — pop. 6,786 — has a newspaper. The Osceola Times reported on the high school’s homecoming court, and I thought you’d get a kick out of it. I know you love unusual and melodious names, and two members of the court this year were named “America” and “A’Miracle.”
God bless America (the country and the person).
A little language? A little grammar? A reader sends a passage from a Sports Illustrated article on Dusty Baker, the manager of the World Series champion Houston Astros. Here it is:
Baker tells the story about a lesson he learned from Bo Schembechler, the old Michigan football coach. He asked Schembechler how he knew whom he could trust to play well and who he could not. “I look ’em in the eye,” Bo told him. “That’s how you know.”
Our reader wonders, “Why do ‘whom’ and ‘who’ appear in that same sentence, when it should be ‘whom’ in both instances?” No idea. A strange one.
Finally, a reader writes,
Dear Mr. Nordlinger,
. . . I also want to thank you for your inclusion of photography in many of your pieces. I have a set of monochrome photos of your fine city [New York] on my website.
And excellent photos they are. To see the work of Jeff Maysent, go here. And, again, today’s London journal is here.