We are sitting under the awning of the Café Mabillon. It is raining in Paris. Not the gauzy rains depicted in the sofa-sized painting that hung in the French-Provincial style living room of my youth, but a torrential rain. With the awning fully extended, Diane and I are dry and snug as we sipped our…

In 1964, there were two main ways to travel from New York to Florida; by airplane or train. Airplane was of course the preferred mode. But if one traveled by train – there were two options: Seaboard and Atlantic Coast Lines (these were the days before Amtrak and the last gasp of private train companies).…

It sounds like the title of a 1940’s movie, doesn’t  it? But I did recently spent a few days in Latvia participating in the 1st Stage of the 2016-17 International Winter Swimming Association World Cup in Jelgava.  The world of winter swimming is highly organized and there are events (in cold climes of course) from…

Not much swimming There is only one reference to swimming to Tolstoy’s War & Peace.  It is when Prince Andrei returns to Bald Hills, his family estate, after battle.  The French, under Napoleon, have devastated the countryside and the fields and houses have been plundered.  The men in Prince Andrei’s outfit are exhausted and take…