“So sorry to hear of your loss,” I wrote. “We’ll be thinking of you guys.” It was an email to friends ten years our senior, a couple who had recently lost a father 94 years old. Not to Coronavirus but to plain old old age. It was an ordinary passing–although no passing is ever really…More
Author Archives: Rick Bailey
Rick Bailey grew up in Freeland, Michigan, on the banks of the Tittabawassee River. He taught writing for 38 years at Henry Ford College.
A Midwesterner long married to an Italian immigrant, he has learned the language and food of Italy, traveled around the country, and, in the process, he has been (partly) made over–italianizato. In retirement Rick and his wife divide their time between Michigan and the Republic of San Marino.
Grubs for Lunch–from And Now This
My friend Luigi asks, “Do you think prehistoric people were happier than we are?” We’re standing in line at an airport food vendor called the Dogpatch Bakehouse. Our flight is on time, but my stress level is high. I took a few wrong turns driving from the hotel to the airport, then left my phone…More
Wreckage–from The Enjoy Agenda
I was ten years old the first time I saw a real car accident and its aftermath. It was a humid summer evening. My father and I were closing our service station when the township siren sounded. A cop car screamed through town. Then the phone rang. My father took the call, listened a few…More
The Scream in My Heart–from And Now This
Chimps are funny. When I was a kid there was a television commercial for Red Rose Tea. Four chimps, dressed in plaid jackets and black slacks, playing swing music at a club called The Savory Ritz. On stage there was piano chimp, trombone chimp, and string bass and drummer chimp. Also, in the foreground, lady…More
Comfort, Comforter, Comfortest–from American English, Italian Chocolate
“Help me with the piumino,” she says. My wife is holding an armful of comforter cover, still warm from the dryer. We’re going to stuff the comforter (piumino in Italian) into the cover, an ordeal that makes me long for the simple days of my youth, when bedding consisted of flat sheet, blanket, and bedspread.…More
When We Went Hither–and what we swore
“Don’t even think about it,” Tizi said. We were walking down to the local market the other day, a two-mile round trip on foot. It was a bright morning in October, perfectly autumnal. I was telling her about a professor of mine who used to say au-TOOM-nal, a pronunciation I liked and tried on for…More
Beans and Baroque
This morning I have a pot of bean soup on the stove. These are pinto beans. We buy them still in their pods at a local grocery store. Tizi is obsessed with them. Whenever we find a basket full of pinto beans, she buys all of them, carrying out a whole shopping bag stuffed with…More
The Birds and the Beatles
I’m reading a New Yorker article about Paul McCartney at the breakfast table one morning. At the top of the page there’s a black and white photo of the Beatles, circa 1965. It’s the year, the caption tells us, of Help! and Rubber Soul. My wife and I are leaving for Italy in a week…More
iSmell–coming soon to a nose near you
When I was a kid, I loved to watch my father shave, the brush, the whip-cream soap, the razor, and most of all, Old Spice. The bottle alone, with its ocean blue galleon and red curlicue font and its peg-leg cap, was exotic. Some nights, once he was done shaving, he would pat my cheeks…More
More Than Enough–on walking at 5:00 a.m.
I’ve been thinking about topophilia of late. “One’s mental, emotional, and cognitive ties to a place,” as University of Wisconsin geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, who coined the term, defines it. Where I’ve had this feeling, of being tied to and restored by a place, is just outside my door. This morning I can’t see much of…More