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If Florida had secret beaches guarded by limestone cliffs, vineyards sliding down to 900-year-old stone walls, lovely, zig-zagging cobblestone streets, and Roman castles, it would be the Algarve. The southwest corner of Portugal is a beautiful place, even in the off season. But you must accept the ubiquitous couples and small pods of Western European retirees and vacationers – mostly Brits and Germans, it seems - who either settle here in their old age because of the low taxes, or vacation here because of warm weather and cheap airfares. It would be easy to thumb our noses at these interlopers if we weren’t, well, them. Truth be told, it’s kind of handy that most of the menus have English translations. When visiting a place like this, it can be difficult to resist the pull of the tourism industrial complex. You wind up following the other visitors to all the places that make for good photos. But one way we at least try to blend in is a with website called ToursByLocals. It hooks you up with folks you can hire to show you around. It hasn’t let us down in other cities, and didn’t in the Algarve. Having had a great experience in Ireland with a foraging tour, Mary put that word in her Algarve search, which is how we found Edoardo Vincenti, an Italian living in Portugal, and a trained forestry engineer. When he isn’t giving tours, he raises Carob trees and enjoys the laid-back vibe of Southern Portugal. Edoardo told us he worked on many forestry projects all over Europe, until he realized “that my only happiness was my next pay increase. That is no way to live.” We told him we’d be there a few days, and wanted to get the lay of the land, find a few good hikes, and learn a little about what the place was really like. He did all of that. And when it was clear we actually were interested in learning about some of the native trees and plants, he was happy to oblige. Portugal seems to be teeming with native herbs, and every walk we went on, even in rocky terrain, seemed to be delightfully aromatic. Edoardo pointed out fennel, sage, and something called sea asparagus. He also showed us a cork plantation, where we got out of the car and examined a cork oak tree up close. This is a staple crop in Portugal, where natives are fighting the trend of winemakers switching to synthetic corks and screw tops. “We say that if the wine has no cork, it is not worth more than one and a half euros,” Edoardo said. “That’s the cost of the bottle and the cork.” The cork comes from the bark of the tree, which is stripped at harvest time and taken to processing plants. It’s used for bottle stoppers, of course. But it also makes excellent insulation for building projects, and is used in everything from handbags to shoes. Cork farming is not for the impatient. Once harvested, it takes 11 years for the bark to grow back so it can be stripped again. And a newly planted cork oak tree takes 35 years to yield its first crop. “The farmers say they plant the trees for their grandchildren,” Edoardo explained, adding: “If you have 200 hectares of cork trees, you are rich. No need to work.” He also pointed us in the direction of a long and winding cliff walk, which we tested the next day. It runs along the coast for miles, and we picked it up a short walk from our villa. This is a coastline that is changing often, as large cliffs of limestone give way to the ocean. So we were careful not to get too close to the edge. But we walked for about a mile, past one breathtaking view after another, until we found a bench where we could enjoy the bread and cured ham we’d brought. On the way back we spotted the top of a large ladder, the only way down to a beach that was otherwise accessible only by boat. It seemed sturdy enough, so we gave it a try. We were rewarded with a ground-level view of the cliffs, and the joy of taking our shoes off and putting our feet in the water. Someday we will be too old to climb down ladders like this. Not today. Edoardo had told us the day before that “it is good to put your feet in the ocean.” He said it in a way that communicated that he didn’t simply mean it would be “fun” or “feel good.” He meant that is actually good, as in, good for your health - he didn’t specify mental or physical. I have been putting my feet in oceans since I would walk, and I think I already knew this. Somehow it felt comforting to hear someone say it. Anyway. Edoardo was right. It was good for us, as it always is. A highlight of Algarve is the food. Edoardo took us to lunch in the seaside town of Ferragudo. He past the cafes that were filled with tourists, toward a few restaurants along the wharf. “The first one was not open,” he said when he returned. “But the second one is open, and I have checked the fish.” It’s the Portugeuse tradition to display the fresh fish at the front of the restaurant, in large displays over ice. In our case, the waitress at Restaurante Sueste also brought out a tray of freshly caught fish for us to select. Mary and I shared a golden bream. Edoardo chose a red mullet. Moments later I looked out the window over Mary’s shoulder and saw an older man preparing and cooking fish on a charcoal grill outside the restaurant. “Is that the person cooking out food?” I asked. “Yes,” Edoardo said. I walked out to investigate, and chatted with a man who called himself Renatu while I watched him clean, gut, scale, and cook my fish. “Is fresh today,” he said of the fish. “All you need is a little salt.” I have had many happy and delicious seafood meals prepared with spice combinations, sauces, and fancy techniques. But this meal was a case study in the primacy of the freshest possible fish cooked – not overcooked - over a simple charcoal fire. It was wonderful. We are staying in a two-bedroom villa a short walk from – and with a nice view of – the ocean. It has a sweeping terrace off a large, marble-floored living room. And it was an off-season bargain at $160 per night. Perhaps most importantly, it had laundry, which we badly needed heading into our third week on the road. After discovering that there was a washer but no dryer, we found the laundry rack and hung our clothes in the sun. We enjoyed the freshness of sun dried clothes so much that we're considering putting up a clothesline back home. But I'm not sure we can replicate the effect of the Algarve sea breezes. On to Lisbon.

Our goal was simple. We were looking for some traditional Irish music and a pub that wasn’t packed to the gills – a trickier ask than one might think on a holiday/marathon weekend in Dublin. We wound up discovering not only a great old pub, but a lovely young music trio. The Magpies are three young women from England, each commanding a lovely voice, and strong trad chops on, respectively, the violin, guitar, and banjo. They describe their music as “trans-Atlantic folk,” and it’s a mix of original songs and nuggets from the past. They also featured several instrumental offerings, in the Irish tradition. The Magpies have “burst out of” the UK folk scene, according to their website. Bella Gaffney seems to be the primary song-writer. But the website makes clear that the three band members work collaboratively. Kate Griffen, who alternates between guitar and banjo with Gaffney, also writes songs, as does Holly Brandon, who shines on violin. Although Gaffney takes the lead vocal on most songs, the band is best when the three harmonize, especially in moments when the instruments drop and the voices are left. You can check them out here. We’ll keep an eye on them from afar, and will hope for some US appearances. Also strong was the opening solo act, Sarah Buckley, who hails from County Cork. As for the pub, the Cobblestone seems to be a strong gathering place for lovers of traditional Irish music. There is a “session” every night at the front tables. This is where local musicians gather informally and play, occasionally allowing guests to sit in, and join them for a song. Most of the offerings are instrumental jigs and reels. But the occasional ballad is heard. It’s an especially lovely Irish-pub moment when the place goes silent for a song, and a perfect Irish tenor or soprano offers something like “Raglan Road” or “She Moved Through the Fair.” It is located on the north side of the Liffey River, near Smithfield Square.

One of the hallmarks of the good vacation is finding a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that turns out to be delightful, then walking out with the feeling that you’ve found “your place” in that city. It’s silly, I know, and more than a little influenced by the bottle of wine the two of you shared. But it’s a joyful feeling nevertheless, and must be respected. We had it as we emerged from Le Petite Vendome, in Paris’ 2nd Arrondissement. We can’t take full credit for finding it on our own. The recommendation came from a friend of Mary’s who is a frequent visitor to Paris. It’s a bustling, unassuming bistro with a small bar in the front. The tables are huddled together, filled with people talking loudly in French, enjoying their meals. We sat down at a table for two in the corner of the back room, which we shared with a table of about 12 well-dressed, young French professionals, talking passionately, as young French professionals will. I ordered escargot to start, followed by the duck confit. Mary had French onion soup and a salad. Although I’m a lover of shellfish, it was my first experience with snails, other than a frustrating battle several decades ago with a plate of tiny periwinkles in Martha’s Vineyard. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone with a more refined palette than I said these were prepared with a little too much salt and garlic. But I thought they were delicious. The rich, meaty flavor of the snail stood up fine to the seasoning. And the duck was rich and gamey - fall-off-the bone delicious. Mary loved hers as well, in particular the cheesy pastries on her fresh salad. Just as we were savoring the fact that the restaurant seemed to be filled with locals, an American couple was seated next to us. And by “next to us” I mean their table was inches away. We had the polite “where are you from” conversation. LA, it turns out. “What brings you to Paris,” Mary asked. “Paris,” the man answered with a shrug and a smile. Good answer. At some point he mentioned that they had just come from Bar Hemingway, around the corner, which he said was laughably overpriced but excellent and worth a stop. “Where do you want to go?” Mary asked as we stepped out into the street a few minutes later. “Bar Hemingway, of course!” I’m only slightly embarrassed to say that I drank the Hemingway Kool Aid as a young man, especially the image of him drinking and brawling in Paris with other great writers. Overpriced or not, it seemed negligent not to stop in for a drink. Turns out the bar is in the Ritz, where Hemingway often stayed, no doubt in the years after he was famous and rich. He also drank at the bar, which is filled with pictures of him, along with various manly accessories. I succumbed to the J. Peterman-like backstory of the Kashenka, which the menu explained is “the story of a beautiful Polish dancer who broke an artist’s heart. He wrote a poem within a glass. Fresh strawberries lightly crushed would represent his soul. Three-month aged vodka made by the Bar Hemingway team represents his blood, and the cold shattered ice over which the Polish vodka is poured is Catherine herself, who left the artist doomed to dream of her in absence forever." It was a fruity double vodka on the rocks, though a damn good one, I must admit. Mary had the Miss Bond, a blend of raspberry and champagne that was delightful despite a much less elaborate backstory. There's an early Woody Allen stand-up routine in which he imagined himself living in Paris among the great artists and writers who congregated there after World War I. It was a series of "recollections" about the legendary thriving literary scene, all of which ended with the same punch line. “Hemingway had just finished his first novel,” goes one of them. “Gertrude Stein and I read it and said it was a good book but not a great book, but with a little work it could be a fine novel. And we laughed over it. And Hemingway punched me in the mouth.” Each of our drinks at Bar Hemingway were 34 euros. Seventy five bucks for two cocktails.. That's going to leave a mark.

We have landed in Le Marais, our neighborhood in Paris for the next week. It’s an Airbnb apartment three floors up from a street which, as I write this, it is bustling with people going to work, and opening their shops. I love staying in big city hotels, where the lobbies and bars and coffee shops make you feel like a fancy traveler. But we’re after something both different and more affordable on this trip. Mary is sitting at our kitchen table going through emails over coffee, and I’m on the couch writing this. This is also the “full nest” portion of our empty nest trip, and both our children, along with our son’s girlfriend, are staying here with us, still asleep after a rich dinner and long walk last night. We have more traditional Paris vacation plans for later in the day. We’ve already walked across the street to the boulangerie, where we picked up croissants, beignets, and coffee. Kudos to Mary for finding this spot, a thriving neighborhood on the Rive Droit – the Right Bank – of the Seine. It’s a nice mix of youngish working people, cafes and shops that range from discount outlets for everyday items to fancier boutiques with an artsy flavor. The internet tells me this was once popular with artists. It was also one of Paris' Jewish enclaves, and saw some bad days during the Nazi occupation. It has become a center for Paris’ LGBTQ community. The first thing one notices on the streets of Paris are the cafes, of course. Café culture is a real thing. Part of the vibe of the city is that one does not simply go from one place to another. One occasionally pauses, sits in a chair at a table, sips a coffee, or perhaps something stronger later in the day, and either watches the city go by or catches up for a moment with an old friend or two. It’s a nice way to live. There are tourists, of course, though fewer here than a mile or so away near the river. I sat at a café downstairs from our apartment yesterday afternoon, fighting jet lag with an expresso, and observed a mixed crowd. Behind me was an American couple visiting with some Parisienne friends. At another table were two fashionable 20-something professionals, laughing over their glasses of beer. They both seemed to be cool and funny, which lead me to wonder if they were in the early, try-hard-to-be-cool-and-funny days of a relationship, or if they were simply cool and funny. Coming from a city like Nashville, where if you rode your bike to work you’d be taking your life in your hands, it is nice to see a fully protected bike lane on the Rue de Turbigo, a major thoroughfare near us. As I observed the morning commute today, I saw more bikes than cars, with the cyclists running the gamut from the younger folks one expects to see, to well-dressed professionals closer to my age, in suits and nice dresses, happily peddling away. I’ll try not to fall into the “everything is better here” narrative. But why fight it?

We’ve been tinkering with this website for a while now. But as we set out on a 40-day journey that will take us from Nashville to Paris to Dublin to Lisbon to Rome to Florence to Istanbul to Mumbai before returning home through London, we figured it’s time to take things up a notch. The idea of EmptyNestQuest has always been simple. Let’s see if we can take my travel-writing skills and Mary’s digital marketing skills and create something people will see, like, and want to share. If nothing else, it will encourage us to have experiences worth sharing. Now we’re starting this crazy trip that we – okay, Mary – has been planning for months. We are testing the idea that we can essentially live abroad in various cities for short stretches at a time while maintaining enough of a professional work schedule to make it fiscally possible. Like most empty nesters, we’re looking to both relax and liven things up a little as a pat on the back for making it through the child-rearing and college-tuition-paying years. We’ve managed to save some money. But we’re also looking to get better at travelling economically. We’ll stay in a combination of hotels and AirBNBs, with all of the hotels booked with credit card points. Our transatlantic flights were also booked with points, and flights within Europe are cheap. The strong dollar will also be our friend. We’re also trying out a site called Home Exchange. We’ll be sharing our home with some visitors from Texas and France. Fingers crossed that goes well. We’ll let you know. Our journey is built around three events – a Covid-delayed anniversary trip to Paris; a visit with our studying-abroad daughter in Dublin; and the wedding of a family friend’s daughter in India. In between we’ll be part-travelling and part-working as we make our way from the Algarve region of Portugal up to Lisbon, then over to Rome for a week, followed by a trek either up or down the Italian boot from there, then a short stay in Istanbul before heading to India. Along the way we’ll be doing a few touristy things, especially in Paris. But mostly we’ll try to explore these places at ground level, ideally on foot, and do our best to see what’s it’s like to live there. Although Mary has trimmed her consulting schedule for the next month, she will still be working some, thanks to the magical powers of Zoom and other fancy-pants interweb tools. And me? I’m a travel writer, so I’ll be writing, pitching, and collecting stories. I’ll also be posting and updating a travelogue here, and sharing photos and updates on Instagram @empty.nest.quest, and and to our group on Facebook. Please feel free to follow us at either or both places. And tell your friends! And if you have any suggestions for things we should see, places we should eat, etc., fire away. We’re hoping to build a community of like-minded folks – empty nesters looking to keep things interesting. Here’s hoping the pressure of sharing interesting stories will keep us motivated to have interesting stories to tell.

I don’t know how John Prine would have felt about Monday night’s Covid-delayed celebration of his life. He probably would have cracked a joke at his own expense. He almost certainly would have loved the music. Mostly, though, if story after story told from the stage of the Ryman Auditorium is true, he would have had fun hanging out with his friends. Prine, a Chicago native who settled in Nashville for the last 40 years of his life, died of Covid in early 2020, one of the first big names to be lost from a pandemic that would shut the country down for two years. This birthday celebration, hosted by his family, was supposed to happen a year ago, but fell victim to yet another Covid surge. But the show went on Monday, which would have been Prine’s 76th birthday. One after another after another, artists took the stage and talked as much about the impact of Prine’s music as they did about his affable nature and personal kindness. There was Bonnie Raitt tearing up as she recalled touring in the early 70s with Prine and the late Steve Goodman, likening them to Huck and Tom to her Becky. She told the audience that the first time she heard Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” - written by a man from the point of view of a heart-breakingly disappointed woman - “I knew I was going to be singing that song for the rest of my life.” “I love you John, and I know you all do to,” she told the audience, before offering her latest classic version of the song, this time with Brandi Carlisle. There was Kasey Musgraves talking about her grief the day Prine died, and the night not long after when, also reeling from her own divorce, she said he came to her in a dream and gave her a message and a song. Then she played “Walk in Peace,” telling the audience it was the first time anyone anywhere had heard it. The list goes on, from more established artists like Lyle Lovett, Jason Isbell, Chris Isaak, Bob Weir, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Nathaniel Rateliff, Tyler Childress, and Margo Price, to up and commers like the War and Treaty, the Milk Carton Kids, Allison Russell and JT Nero, Lucius, and I’m With Her. You can find the whole setlist here. A nice moment for Mary and I came when the Milk Carton Kids were introduced, and singer Kenneth Pattengale recalled the time they toured briefly with Prine. One of those shows was at the Chicago Theatre in 2019, and it was the last time we saw him. The tickets came to us by accident at the last minute when a friend couldn’t use them. Given Prine’s illnesses – he had part of his throat removed after a battle with cancer – and the fact that we knew nothing about his then-new album, “Tree of Forgiveness,” we didn’t know what to expect. It was one of the best concerts either one of us had ever seen. The Milk Carton Kids – Joey Ryan and Pattengale – are a tight harmony duo that draws comparisons to the Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel. They play vintage, unamplified acoustic guitars, standing in close proximity to the single microphone that delivers all their sound. Their version of Prine’s “Storm Windows,” in the near-perfect acoustics of the Ryman, was sublime. Most artists sang a favorite Prine song. Some, like Musgraves and Williams, debuted songs about Prine. In Williams’ case, she recalled an evening they tried to write a song together, with no success but great fun. “What could go wrong?” she sang after each chorus describing the opening of a new bottle of wine, “Tryin’ to write a song.” A powerful moment came when Nathaniel Rateliff sang “Sam Stone,” Prine’s ode to a soldier who survives the Vietnam War only to fall victim to heroin addiction. The song, on Prine’s 1971 first album, was written when he was still working as a mailman. Rateliff offered a spare, beautiful rendition to a silent crowd, many of whom were of an age where they might have known someone like the song's protagonist. “Sam Stone was alone When he popped his last balloon Climbing walls while sitting in a chair Well, he played his last request While the room smelled just like death With an overdose hovering in the air But life had lost its fun There was nothing to be done But trade his house that he bought on the GI bill For a flag-draped casket on a local hero's hill There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose” On a lighter note, Dwight Yoakam recalled Prine sharing a favorite concert memory, when a San Francisco fan asked him to play the “happy enchilada” song. He assured her that he had never written such a song, then finally realized she was talking about “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round,” which features the chorus: “It's half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown That's the way that the world goes 'round.” Yoakam, along with many in the audience, gleefully substituted “happy enchilada” for “half an inch of water.” Monday’s concert was part of a series of events around Nashville, all of them benefitting the Hello In There Foundation. Named after an early Prine song about a lonely old couple, it aims to help marginalized people. The concert ended on a note that was both touching and upbeat. Tommy Prine, John Prine’s son and a budding musician himself, led the crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” then he and Yoakam, along with the rest of the artists from the show, joined on stage for a rousing version of “Paradise,” Prine’s ode to the Kentucky county where his parents grew up. (Writer's indulgence: My favorite John Prine story didn't come from Monday's concert. I tell it here because it makes me smile, and think of my mother's cousin Jimmy, who loved to crack a joke. Nashville singer-songwriter Todd Snider told the story after Prine died. You can find it on his new album, Todd Snider Live: Return of the Storyteller. Snider was a young artist getting a lot of support from Prine, who invited him to open some shows for him. It was Prine's tradition throughout his career to end each show by inviting the opener onstage to help him sing "Paradise." When Snider got to the stage, he nervously realized he didn't have a guitar pick, and told Prine so. Prine pointed to a bowl filled with dozens and dozens of guitar picks and said: "Use one of these." When Snider reached into the bowl, Prine said: "Not that one.") Photo: Dwight Yoakan and Tommy Prine lead other artists, and the crowd at the Ryman, in Prine's "Paradise."

Our expectations were somewhat low for Father John Misty. We were only going because good friends are big fans and built a Nashville visit around his show at the Ryman. And he seemed like the kind of act we would like. We dutifully listened as Spotify shuffled through his catalogue, and we were only slightly whelmed. You could tell there was something there – catchy melodies and dense, clever lyrics. But it seemed like an acquired taste that we hadn’t yet put the time in to acquire. Then came the live show. Consider us converted. The combination of Misty’s effortless vocal range and the big sound of his tight 10-piece band hooked us from the first notes of “Q4,” a song from his new album, "Chloe and the Next 20th Century." How do I know it was that particular song? I looked it up, of course. You can find any setlist on the internet. The reality is, we did not know a single song in the concert. The one “hit” "Real Love Baby," was not on the setlist. For us it was like the experience of hearing a great new band for the first time. That wasn’t the case for the other 2,000 people at the Ryman, many of whom were singing along to some or all of the songs. And what to say about Father John Misty? He is somewhere between indie rock, folk, and jazz, with an entertaining on-stage persona that folks my age might call a cross between Michael Stipe and David Byrne. His songs have a stream-of-consciousness vibe. It's like watching a great singer and highly talented musical arranger read from his journals. The perfect Ryman acoustics didn’t hurt – “This is such a wonderful room to sing in,” Misty said, by way of apologizing for the indulgence of playing some obscure numbers during his five-song encore. The power of his band cannot be understated. It’s expensive to tour with a 10-piece group. And one couldn’t blame Misty for paring the sound down a little bit when he hit the road. But he seems to be an artist who wants to perform the song the way he recorded it, and the way he hears it in his head. If he hears it with multiple keyboards, multiple guitars, pedal steel guitar, two saxophones, vibes, and a trumpet, on top of the obligatory bass and drums, so be it. You have to respect that. He also seemed to enjoy the act of performing, especially when he put his own guitar down and was able to wander the stage, often dancing. He even dropped to his knees for a few big moments, a la James Brown. Bottom line: We’ll be back next time he is in town.

(Note: This story was first published in The Boston Globe on August 4, 2022.) The first success of the recently opened Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Okla., is that it avoids the trope confounding Dylan since he first plugged his guitar into an amp at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. His early acoustic songs and his ground-breaking, “voice of a generation” protest anthems are part of the exhibits, of course. But so is the rest of the sweeping artistic journey that has been his 60-plus-year career. Dylan, perhaps more than any artist in popular music, has followed his muse wherever it took him — from protest songs to romantic poetry to born-again Christian themes to haunting ballads. Some work has been better than the rest. But greatness has been sprinkled throughout. Now curators have selected more than 100,000 items from Dylan’s own collection, along with audio and video interviews with him and other artists. They are offered not so much as a chronicle of his life, but an homage to his creative process, and to the ideal of fearless creativity. This is an exhibit that does not try to “figure out” Dylan. It succeeds by focusing on his work. “It’s not for us to say we’ve got [him] figured out,” said Steven Jenkins, the museum’s director. But why Tulsa? Dylan, who grew up in Hibbing, Minn., has no specific ties to Oklahoma. The museum is there because the archives were purchased by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. Though based in California, Henry Kaiser was a native of Tulsa, and long supported charitable efforts there. Serendipitously, this means that the Dylan Center is in the same building as the Woody Guthrie Center. Guthrie, a pioneering folk singer who came to fame during the Great Depression, was an early hero to Dylan. And the Guthrie Center is a worthwhile stop for any Dylan fan. Both are operated by the American Song Archives, part of the Kaiser Foundation, and both are situated in an emerging arts district, just off the downtown center. At the heart of the Dylan Center experience is a personal audio guide system. Visitors are given a device, with headphones, that they can touch to various exhibits. Sometimes they will hear interviews with Dylan or other artists. Sometimes they will simply hear a Dylan song as they read about its genesis and look at artifacts related to its creation. This is especially powerful at the heart of the main exhibit, which is organized with two parallel tracks. Along the wall around the main room, Dylan’s story is told chronologically. In the center, however, are six free-standing displays, each dedicated to one song. The songs are “Chimes of Freedom,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Man in Me,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Jokerman,” and “Not Dark Yet.” For Dylan fans who know these songs word for word, it is fascinating to hear him talking about where the song came from, and to see lyric fragments scribbled out on scraps of paper. “Dylan is operating at such a high level that allows him to, hundreds of times, come up with songs that are just incredible and indelible,” Jenkins said. “But of course, like any artist he’s working at it ― scribbling on hotel stationery; waking up in the middle of the night grabbing a pad of paper next to his bed. And now we see those materials.” Most powerful for me was the display dedicated to “Tangled Up in Blue,” from Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece “Blood on the Tracks.” The end of his marriage is the backdrop for the album and the song. And among the museum’s most treasured artifacts are the three so-called “blood notebooks,” filled with thoughts and scribblings as he was writing the album. Any would-be writer who has ever thought the only thing standing between them and great art is a fancy, leather-bound journal or an expensive software program will be humbled at the flimsy, pocket-size spiral notebooks on which Dylan teased out the songs. They are literally the same spiral notebooks we of a certain age used in grade school to write down homework assignments. One can imagine Dylan buying all three at a truck stop somewhere, for less than a dollar. Also featured at the center is actual footage from the recording of “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan’s 1965 hit. Documented here is the legendary story of Al Kooper, who, invited to the session as a spectator, somehow slipped behind a Hammond Organ and played on the track, his lagging riffs echoing the scathing lyrics like a Greek chorus. Another highlight is a blank wall with markers at the ready, on which visitors are invited to share their thoughts. Museum staff dutifully photograph the wall before it is erased. The center is also home to the 100,000 items in the Bob Dylan Archive Collection, which is only open to approved researchers and scholars. The museum is open to the public, with a $12 admission fee for adults. One can get access to both the Dylan and Guthrie centers for $20. Along with the Guthrie Center, also within walking distance and worth a visit is the Greenwood Cultural Center. Located in what was once known as the “Black Wall Street,” it commemorates the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which as many as 300 African American residents were killed by white mobs.

One of the pleasures of seeking out new music is watching a young artist get better and better. And though we weren’t riding the Adia Victoria bandwagon from the very start, it feels like we may have jumped on in time to enjoy a great ride. Victoria and her band lit up 3rd and Lindsley Saturday night, scorching through her 45-minute chunk of the 2022 Americana Music Festival and Conference. It’s the third time we’ve seen her this year, and a busy touring schedule has served her and her band well. She plays her own guitar, but also rides on the shoulders of – and occasionally launches into a musical higher place from – a tight, powerful band, lead by her "creative partner," Mason Hickman. At a festival more commonly adorned in faded blue jeans and friendly flannel, Victoria commands the stage like a blues priestess in her long black dress and trademark red cowboy boots. Victoria is a Blues singer with a chip on her shoulder and a message she is not afraid to make crystal clear, namely that young women of color and other outsiders have as great a claim on the blues as anyone else. She has steeped herself in the great Delta blues artists, then mixed that up into her own experience, particularly as a South Carolina girl raised in an evangelical church she eventually realized didn’t have anything to offer her. She sees the problems in her native South, and wants to fix them rather than walk away from them. Listen to her words on her best-known song, “South Gotta Change,” which she described as an homage to the late Rep. John Lewis. “I stood up to the mountain Told the mountain, “Say may name” And if you’re tired of walking Let the children lead the way ‘Cause I love you, I won’t leave you Won’t let you slip away Come what may We’re gonna find a way The South gotta change” Maybe the bottom line is I’ve always been a sucker for artists who leave it all on the table; who look at a show as more than a chance to stand there and play you their music, but as an obligation to make you understand why they wrote it. Listen to her music. Go see her show.

The thing about family summer cottages is that they gather memories two weeks at a time, wandering slowly through our lives across generations. The Adirondack chair you’re checking email on your phone in right now is the same Adirondack chair your grandmother sat in in 1964, snapping peas into a bowl. We arrived at my wife’s family cottage in Michigan last week and were pleasantly surprised by a new wooden railing, made by my brother-in-law for the steps that meander down to the beach path. I love good, simple craftsmanship, and have been admiring it for days. Our modest cottage is set back from Lake Michigan by about 50 yards, most of which is covered by a grassy sand dune and a beach. Fancier houses up the coast are too close to the water and occasionally fall prey to erosion, which no amount of money can ever really stop. We like our house safely set back, and love sitting on the screened porch looking at the changing shades of blue, listening to the surge of the waves. That’s what I am doing right now. The porch leads to a wooden deck with a set of steps down into the small valley that is the dune between house and beach. It has existed without a railing for several years but can be tricky to navigate at night. It was tough for my father-in-law in the end. He died last year, and I suspect he might have been on my brother-in-law’s mind when he built it. Although we are on the west coast of Michigan, our view is to the north, looking across more than 100 miles of water to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula over the horizon. (To get the idea, hold your left hand up and facing away from you. That is Michigan. We are on the tip of the pinky.) Because the lake is mostly surrounded by northern forests, our beach is a constant supply of driftwood, arriving in all shapes and sizes. There are natural logs and stumps. But there are also random boards from who knows what. Much of the lumber making up the structure of our new railing is store-bought. But the handrail is driftwood. I can only imagine how long the two-by-fours floated in the lake, then sat on the beach. But they are now weathered to a soft gray. If they could talk they would say: “Hang on. I’ve been out here for a long time and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll get you down these steps.” I should point out that this is not a straight set of stairs. It was custom built to follow the contour of the dune, and each of the nine treads is three or four feet long. Sometimes you take two steps over for each one you take down. And it curls gently down to the left, from the deck to the beginning of the path to the beach. The real beauty is in the cutting, sanding, and fastening. The posts are neatly bolted to the base of the steps, not sloppily screwed or nailed to the treads. This means the whole apparatus is reassuringly firm. Even if you grab it and shake it, this admirable railing won’t move an inch. Meanwhile, the compound miter cuts that allow the railing to wander gracefully are beautiful. In a year or so, after the northern weather has done what it does, this railing will look like it is part of the land; like it has been here for years. Did I mention that my brother-in-law, a carpenter by trade, is also a musician? You can find John Dehner and the Enthusiasts on Spotify. He has a knack for turning experiences in his life into well-crafted, evocative songs. There is a skill in taking something simple – a shaft of dusty sunlight in a woodworking shop or an old guitar at a yard sale – and making it something beautiful and singable. I don’t make music. But I am a moderately handy person. I’ve built a shed myself. And, with some help from a friend, I made a beautiful wooden table I’m proud of, and that my wife works on every day. But I know I could never have built this railing. My version would have been at least a little bit shaky, no matter how many bolts I used. And there would be gaps in my cuts, each one a comment on my lack of skill and patience. I also probably wouldn’t have thought to use the driftwood for the handrail, settling instead for the best two-by-fours I could find at Home Depot. I turned 60 last week. And I haven’t had too many positive thoughts about it until now. It seems like just yesterday I was hoisting my children gleefully on my shoulders to walk down these steps to the beach. They are in their 20s now, and we walk down one at a time. But as I look at this railing, I can imagine myself in a decade or so, really needing the handrail as a small child holds my other hand to go down to the beach and look for Petoskey stones. “I can remember when your Uncle John made this railing,” I’ll say. “Boy did he do a good job!”

We love this crisp and golden Spinach Pie recipe! I adapted it from a Cooking Light appetizer recipe for bite-size spanikopita. We loved the flavor, but folding the phyllo dough into tiny triangles was way too much trouble. This version uses only 4 sheets of phyllo dough, and more than double the amount of spinach in the original, making it a light and healthy meal. This recipe is written for two servings, but when our kids are home we make two pies. Leftovers are rare, but really tasty heated in the microwave the next day! Ingredients for Two Servings Filling: 1/2 bunch of green onions - around 1 cup 16 ounces of spinach - 1 large package. Trust me, you need this much. 1/3 cup feta cheese 1/3 cup ricotta cheese 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh dill 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice 2 egg whites, lightly beaten EVOO Salt and Pepper Crust: 4 sheets of phyllo dough - thawed 1 egg white, lightly beaten 1 tablespoon EVOO Salt Instructions for Two Servings Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté green onions in olive oil for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Set aside in large bowl. Use the same skillet to wilt the spinach in 2-3 batches. Press water from spinach and add to the bowl with green onions. Add all three cheeses, chopped dill, lemon juice, and 2 lightly beaten egg whites to spinach mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Coat pie baking dish with cooking spray. Layer four phyllo dough sheets one at a time with a corner of each sheet in the middle of the pie dish and a few inches of each sheet extending beyond the pie dish. Use a circular pattern so that all sides of the pie dish are covered. Place filling on top of the phyllo dough in the center of the pie dish. Fold phyllo sheets that extend beyond the pie dish over the spinach mixture. Mix 1 lightly beaten egg white with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Lightly brush egg white mixture on top of the phyllo dough crust. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the crust is golden. Enjoy!

I am not what the experts call a fitness buff. I consider myself reasonably active, biking and hiking regularly; walking for a round of golf where possible; occasionally enjoying sports like paddle tennis and pickle ball. But there are far too many hot dogs and several thousand cans of beer between me and my younger, leaner self. Which is why my modest success at sticking with our new Hydrow rowing machine is worth noting. I’m not breaking any records on the thing. But I have rowed more than 80 miles since we got it, coming closer with every stroke to my first goal of an imaginary trek up Lake Michigan from Chicago to Mackinac Island. I am, in my mind, off the coast of Milwaukee. The fact that I know I’ve rowed 80 miles is, of course, the key for me. I am among the last people in the world to figure out that tracking things like exercise - which Hydrow does for you - has the effect of pushing you to row more. Who knew? The selling point for the thing is the guided workouts. You don’t just sit there and row, watching a screen add up the miles. You can participate in a live row, with professional rowers coaching you from a screen, and the times of fellow Hydrowers displayed to keep you motivated. Or you can call up any of a vast number of pre-taped rows. The model for this is Peleton, of course. The “guided” part of the experience is essential at first, unless you are already a trained rower. There is a proper technique to rowing, and knowing it can both improve your speed and maximize your work-out. Like in a real rowing scull, the seat on a Hydrow slides back and forth. Each stroke starts with the rower crouched closest to the screen, legs bent and arms extended forward, holding the tethered handle that simulates the oars. Your feet are strapped into adjustable foot rests, mounted to the machine. Each stroke starts with the legs, which should drive the body back while the arms are still extended. As the seat slides backward, the rower’s upper body leans up, then back, followed finally by the arms pulling the oars to the chest. The stroke is then repeated in reverse order – arms releasing forward, upper body leaning up, then forward, and legs returning to the crouch as the seat slides forward. As this description should make clear, the act of rowing exercises many muscles. It’s easy to break a sweat on this thing, and perhaps the most satisfying feeling is that sense you are exercising the core. You feel like you are accomplishing something. The guided rows are helpful, as the coaches offer both technical advice, observations on life, and good old fashioned motivation. But the Hydrow also offers what it calls “journeys.” Here you simply row while looking at a screen of a scull rowing at various places around the world. I’ve rowed up and down the Cumberland River in Nashville, around Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, up and down the Charles River in Boston, to name a few. These rows tap into the meditative aspect of rowing. Once you feel comfortable with a basic rowing technique, it can be very comforting to simply row, letting yourself fall into a rhythm. I’ll often listen to a playlist on headphones, or maybe a podcast. It helps that rowing has a special place in my heart. I grew up near the water, a hundred feet or so from Norwalk Harbor in Connecticut, to be exact. And I spent many happy hours in our little rowboat, shuffling up and down the coastline, or around my father’s boat as it sat at its mooring. I was a mostly quiet and solitary kid, and not particularly adventurous until my early teens. Rowing made me feel good, like I could do something that not every kid could do. It's nice to get that feeling on an exercise machine, racking up the meters while looking out at other boats, or people on the shoreline. You won’t see me at the Head of the Charles any time soon. And I’m not turning into one of these wiry 50-something guys who are – oh, what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Oh yeah – noticeably physically fit. But I am dropping a few pounds. I’m feeling a little bit stronger, and don’t get winded as easily. Mostly, though, I feel good when I do it, and good about doing it. That’s good, right?