Ralph Gardner Jr.

6 days ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

I really ought to buy some art, I told myself recently. I can’t recall what prompted the thought. Perhaps I was looking for light amid the darkness. I remember when my grandfather, our family’s pater familias, died unexpectedly half a century ago. He and my grandmother had a lovely art collection and it offered solace and beauty in the days after his passing. It’s a long time since I bought a painting. In fact, I don’t know where I’d hang it if I did. The walls are already filled with art.

2 weeks ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

I’ve always been impressed by WAMC’s triannual fundraising campaigns. Perhaps this pegs me as a nerd but I listen to them for fun. Not all day, mind you. But an hour here, an hour there. If you’ve ever listened to other public radio stations’ exhortations for money their strategy seems to be to bore you to death until you cough up some dough, just so that they’ll return to regular programming. What’s the secret to WAMC’s success?

3 weeks ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Baltimore orioles began to alight on the white clouds of Callery pear trees blossoms lining our driveway on April 26th, more than a week earlier than they have in the past. How do I know, especially since my memory sucks? Because when I’m not too lazy, I submit the data to eBird, the online database for bird observations. Why did these bold orange and black spring migrants come earlier this year? Was it because the pears blossomed early as well? And is that a result of climate change?

1 month ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Every once in a while I take time out from my busy day to wonder what’s happening to us as a nation. I mean I know what’s happening. I read the news. Way too much of it. One of the blessing of writing is that while you’re writing you’re not reading. It doubles as a form of mediation. But you can’t write all the time. Nor would my constitution allow it. After several hours I’m exhausted. Also, you can’t escape your thoughts in the middle of the night.

1 month ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Often, on the way to and from New York City riding the Taconic State Parkway I think of my grandparents. They would travel from their home in the Hudson Valley, the house we still own, to visit my parents, my brothers and me. I found something idyllic about their leisurely retirement lifestyle — the way they were free to come and go, seemingly without a care in the world, while my young life was bracketed by school, homework and my failed attempts to be popular.