RMDell'Orfano

Bogart’s Hug

The 160 # poodle got up on his hind legs and actually hugged me.

it’s an innate sense of justice that everyone has deep down inside. It induces even an art thief to adjust a priceless museum painting that’s tilted to one side, so it hangs just right before he robs it. The canyon between the rich and poor so deeply divides us, even the robber barons ache to…

Civilization Devolved

I went alone for a long walk around my neighborhood after California’s self-quarantine advisory. A bit fatigued, I sat to rest on a bus-stop metal bench, the kind with handles between the seats. The traffic at this local intersection was now a tenth of the usual rush hour traffic. A Sprinter trolley pulled into the…

The Banyan Tree

We visited the Hawaiian Islands in 1987 and took a tour of Lahaina, the former royal capital on Maui. In that small town, the activity was along Front Street lined with stores and restaurants, and packed with tourists. In the middle of the historic district, Banyan Court Park featured an exceptional banyan tree, which I later…

His Hidden Signature

“God created all the stars, the magnificent heavens, the wonders of the Earth, his Name written in all creation, his hidden signature in everything,

Communism as Religion

There is no word more dangerous than liberalism because to oppose it is a new unforgivable sin.”

Conduct for Learning

I don’t envy public school teachers who daily work to survive the hell of their black-board jungle.

Today’s Rip Van Winkle

Our standard of living has improved more in the last 100 years than in all recorded history. Such rapid innovation is startling and wondrous. But it’s also worrisome — dare I say disturbing — to oldsters like me who daily face the challenge of new-fangled gadgets.

Double Cheeseburger

Trappist monks are remarkably long-lived and free of disease. Their abstemious fare, along with prayer, exercise, and fresh air, lengthens their lives through avoidance of chronic disease. In history many great epidemics and plagues that ravaged the neighboring countryside were stopped at the gates of an abbey (see A Popular History of the Catholic Church…

Behavior Modification

The one day I came late, she had instructed the class to negatively respond to my questions, so that I would gradually seat myself closer and closer to the exit. It worked too well.