Reversing Falls

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Todd R. Nelson

Monthly Archives: December 2013

Family History / Miscellany / Youthful Exploits

Time travel by train

Posted on December 23, 2013 by trn1956 • Leave a comment

 The Philadelphia Inquirer Monday, December 23, 2013 We live within the sound of trains. We always have, through five different houses and five different states, West Coast, Midwest, and East Coast. And the trains sound the same whether we are listening in Maine or the Main Line, Illinois or California, for their sound seems to … Continue reading →

Family History / Miscellany / Youthful Exploits

Strangers become Brothers

Posted on December 15, 2013 by trn1956 • Leave a comment

Outward Bound in Scotland was an epic moment. A photo of Churchill Watch sits on my bookcase. I am the tall, skinny, bushy-haired kid in the back row. Hands in pockets, I peer at the camera, scowling, uncertain. Brian Todd sits in the front row beside our instructor, Mr. Cliff. His hands are on his … Continue reading →

Family History

A Family History Sung by Bagpipes

Posted on December 15, 2013 by trn1956 • Leave a comment

Photo: Piping for the Class of 2010, Adams School, Castine, Maine. THIS is the story of why I play the bagpipes, and it begins more than a hundred years ago. On July 2, 1867, at 23 Hunter St. in Glasgow, Scotland, Alexander Neilson, a journeyman joiner, and Jeanie Callum, listed simply as “spinster” in the … Continue reading →

Family History / Miscellany

Back to the Old Country

Posted on December 15, 2013 by trn1956

I was on a plane from Philadelphia to Glasgow, the city of my ancestors. In two days, my daughter, Ariel Rose Nelson, would graduate from Glasgow School of Art. “We”—the Nelson family—left the city four generations ago, and some of us have been looking back ever since. And looking ahead. Ours is a common enough … Continue reading →

Miscellany

The Snow Day Owl

Posted on December 10, 2013 by trn1956 • Leave a comment

December 3, 2007 He appeared with the first flakes of snow, swooping in low out of the woods and into the field. He took up sentinel duty on an 8-foot tall fence post by the garden. From a distance he looked like a huge ball of yarn, or a post with a shawl on top. … Continue reading →

Post navigation

Recent Posts

  • All Hail, Fairytopia!
  • Thrush Hour
  •   New anti-war candidates wanted
  • The Soil of Learning
  • Clan, Tribe, Band, Community

Archives

  • September 2020
  • June 2020
  • March 2018
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • January 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • January 2015
  • July 2014
  • March 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012

Categories

  • Family History
  • In Town
  • Local Characters
  • Messing Around in Boats
  • Miscellany
  • Off Neck
  • Our French Historical Cousins: Castine and St. Castin
  • Seasons
  • The Animals
  • The Land
  • The Natural World
  • The Schoolyard
  • The Streams and Coves
  • The Town Common
  • Thoreauvian Pursuits
  • Youthful Exploits

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 4 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.
Cancel