Monthly Archives: June 2025

Hydrangeas

Not as vivid as some, but you can at least get a hint of the variation possible.

They’re in full bloom as I write this. Bushes three feet high or so, with huge clusters of bright pink or vivid blue flowers – with every shade in between (even a sort of pale yellow green at times). Sometimes even on the same bush. I don’t know why – probably something to do with a genetic quirk in the plant coupled with some soil chemistry. I could look it up, but seeing them has sent my thoughts in another direction.

Traditionally (at least in the US), light blue / sky blue / powder blue has been used to designate a boy at a birth celebration. Pink has been used to denote a girl. If you follow the news as much as I do, you cannot help but notice that there’s a lot of stuff about people who don’t exactly fit into the normal “boy/male” or “girl/female” boxes. Instead of Blue or Pink, they’re purple.

When we see the varied colors of hydrangea blossoms, we don’t consider them to be different plants, do we. So why shouldn’t we do the same with all the variations in people? Why waste the effort to force them into just one or two “colors”, when the variety is much nicer – and more natural?

Jaws at 50

I find it odd that one of the best and most important movies of all time never seems to get the respect it deserves. It spawned sequels and knock-offs, launched the careers of not just Steven Spielberg but John Williams, invented the “summer blockbuster”, and even gave rise to “Shark Week”. Get people talking about it, and they’ll soon agree it’s one of the greatest movies ever – or should at least be in the discussion. But come back to them the next day, and ask them to make a list of the Greatest Movies Ever…….

I think there are a couple of reasons for this neglect.

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Great Moments in Basketball History

I’m not a basketball fan. I can just about follow a game, but I have only the basic knowledge of the sport that one who glances at the sports news every day manages to acquire over the years. For example, I know that the NBA Finals are in full swing – but I couldn’t tell you what teams are involved.

But if you check out the “Book Reviews” page here, you’ll see that I’m a fan of history – and sports history. Recently (inspired largely by Joe Posnanski’s Why We Love Baseball and Why We Love Football), I started wondering what events and incidents would – or should – be included in a list of Great Moments in Basketball History.

There are plenty of lists out there – but I’m taking a much broader view of what belongs.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Great River

The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi
Boyce Upholt
W.W. Norton & Company
(c) 2024 by the author

The Mississippi River is one of the longest rivers in the world. Add its many tributaries to it – the Ohio, the Missouri, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, the Red – and you’ve got one of the greatest river systems on the planet. Upholt concentrates on the “Big Muddy” itself, giving a rough history of how people have used and tried to control it.

It’s not a perfectly linear history; like the river itself, he meanders quite a bit. A quick look at how people decided on what would be the source of the river gives way to the geological history of the river basin, which goes right in to its ‘discovery’ and exploration by Europeans. Then comes its role in the development and growth of the United States, complete with steamboats and river rafts. And then it’s back to the past as people start wondering about all those odd mounds that seem to pop up all around the river.

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