There is, of course, no way that I can reproduce the notes themselves, that delicate melody that used to run through my mind from time to time. It was a few notes, really, something sublime, something I had heard many times, but it was a piece I’d not actually listened to for many years.

It’s a sound as much as a smell, a smell as much as a taste, a taste as much as a memory, and always it is the onset of a journey, some of them profound, many that are heartfelt, wondrous, mysterious, adventurous, insightful, vivid, otherworldly. It’s popcorn, portal to all that was holy as a kid.

His name was Grigori Efimovich Rasputin and he is one of the most enigmatic men who ever lived. His supporters thought him a saint; his distracters thought him a fraud; but whether one is Christian, theist, deist, or atheist, the things he did absolutely defy belief.

Share My family just returned from a quick trip to visit our relatives on the other side of the country, and I have confirmed something I already knew – I hate air travel. These days it seems to get worse every year. With all of the mergers of airlines it seems like they are all [...]