Gone Away
Dispatches from a life in America
270 posts
Louis Trichardt
(This is one of a series of articles I wrote dealing with memories of an African childhood. To read the first of these, click here ) Way back in the mists of time, I was a university student in Pietermaritzburg, the…
On Deleting the Expletive
A while back I had an email from Buck Worthington, of Buck the Legal System , letting me know how much he enjoyed my blog. His last sentence was: "It's nice to know someone still can write without all the F-bombs!"…
O Water
Many years ago I worked in the High Court of Zimbabwe. It was a very large and rambling building, constructed in the 1920s I'd guess, and contained several courts and many large offices. Wandering corridors connected…
An Average Tale
Dirk Strong listened as the opposing speaker worked the crowd with his polished oratory. The man was good, there was no doubt of that. He spoke clearly and with certainty, hammering each of his points home with…
Trafalgar Day
Today is significant in Britain in that it's the 200th anniversary of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's victory and death at the Battle of Trafalgar. I am not a great one for anniversaries and regularly forget birthdays and…
Inventions of a non-Engineer
In my younger days, I used to invent things. It would be wrong to say that I was an inventor, for I never actually did anything about the ideas I came up with, but just occasionally I'd have a brainwave and think of a…
Controlling the Explosion
There's no doubt about it: autumn has arrived. I can tell, despite the fact that the demands of blogging keep me glued to the computer. Instead of trees changing their colors and the temperature dropping, in the…
Gunter
A few days ago, John Telfer of Scotwise responded to my post, Billy Tucker , with a suggestion that I tell a few more dog stories. What follows is the result. Many long years ago, soon after I was first married, we…
Downwind Thoughts
It has been raining in Lawton and once again the road past our house has turned into a river; this enables me to claim that sometimes we have a waterfront property. On the far bank of the road/river, there is a park…
Reflections in an Old Mirror
Who would be young today? Many of us old fogies express a wish to be young again but I doubt that we mean it literally. The thought springs from a vague desire for a body that no longer aches in the mornings, for the…
African Encounters
(This is one of a series of articles I wrote dealing with memories of an African childhood. To read the first of these, click here ) I have never seen a leopard in the wild. Although I lived in Africa for 27 years and…
The Car and the Computer
In 1958, when I was 11 years old, my father accepted a promotion to Managing Director of the Zimbabwean operation of the pharmaceutical firm he worked for. This entailed a move of around 2,000 miles from Cape Town to…
Billy Tucker
In December of last year I posted two articles, Rufus 1 and Rufus 2 , intending to write a series on the dog of that name. In the event, it never happened, mainly because I realized that it was a very long story indeed…
It's my Blogbirthday!
A year ago today, the Gone Away blog was born, kicking and yelling its way into the blogosphere. It was a fairly basic baby, having no comments system, just one chameleon graphic and no RSS feed. The comments, RSS and…
Mr Salinger and the Haiku
Over at Stuff Mark Wrote , Mark Allen (no relation, in fact not really his surname) has posted several poems including a few haikus. I don't know if anyone has noticed it, but haikus seem to be spreading through the…
A Little Blogging Grammar
Sometimes I think that blogging is the great hope for the survival of literacy in the modern world. It requires that the blogger be able to write and that readers read; plus, it has the great advantage of being a cool…
Blogging with Arthur Koestler
One of the pressures of being serious about blogging is the need to produce original and interesting material at regular intervals. Often I arrive at my blogging day (every second day) with no ideas, no inspiration and…
The Middle Ground
Over at Another Man's Meat , Phil Dillon has been reflecting on his return to Emporia, Kansas, after two weeks away. His article, entitled The Little Wonders of Fly-Over Country , is well worth a read. Phil is…
Jeremiah's Complaint
O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord…
The Great Comments Contest
Garnet, of Glittering Muse , has posted an article about a contest for the 90 best comments (why 90? No idea). I thought at first that I would not put any suggestions forward because most of the best comments on my blog…