Back in the garden, I again have slugs. I may always have slugs. And while last year I kept myself sane by sneaking out while the kids slept to scrape slugs off Brussels sprouts, this year my heart isn’t in it. It’s elsewhere.

That’s a good thing. When the best part of my day does not involve drowning pests by flashlight, I’m having a better spring than last year.

So do I again beg my friends for their spoiled or too-cheap beer to lure the slugs to their doom? Or try something commercial?

Either way, photos of the garden coming soon. I’ve been busy in it, just not crazed about it. That’s a good thing. Last year we got a little obsessive.

Read on twitter that George Esper has died. That I read it on twitter is amusing, because George was part of that wave of journalists filing up-to-the-moment stories for Americans halfway across the world during the Vietnam War, changing how we would forever view war, soldiers and combat. Raw wire copy from AP in newsrooms then looked just like raw stories on twitter today.

But mine is a personal story. Once I was a 20-something-year-old kid at a Boston college. I worked for the college newspaper, and we had found a serial rapist preying on women. He would get them drunk, walk them home to their dorm, read to them in bed and then with their guard down, he would anally rape them. My story was not of the crime, but the way the college handled the rapes — they swept the whole thing under the rug.

Until my team found it.

I needed help. Somehow, serendipity brought me to George Esper, who would counsel me as we put the story together. And afterwards, when the heat was on, he knew I was struggling — I was a scholarship student, not a lot of support would be coming from the college, and George would take me out to dinner on his AP credit card. He’d tell me stories about being in Vietnam, about covering Magic Johnson, about how to handle the tough questions AFTER the story is out.

The cool thing about George? I wasn’t a college co-ed. I was a colleague needing advice. He was a professional, an ambassador for my future profession, and a father figure when I really needed one. He would tell me how people balanced news and a family. How maybe, just maybe, I could stay in Boston and still be a journalist making an impact. How I might change just a little corner of the world if I stay in the business.

So, if you’re a reporter who I’ve pulled aside when you’re struggling; if I took pity on you and bought you lunch; if I showed you there’s a place for you in journalism where you could change just a little corner of the world, thank George Esper. He was a wonderful teacher.

And I miss him today.

shortformblog:

You daily dose of visual evidence that some poor web producer had a frantic moment recently. Whatever opinion you may hold of Dunkin’ Donuts, nutritionally or by culinary quality, this is fear-mongering of the worst kind!

My worst fear in the world is that someone would take my error like this and paste it all over Tumblr

Jalapeno that survived the snow last week #garden

Yellow Jamaican peppers, last of the season #garden

Drying thyme: Lots of herbs are drying in my house after last week’s snowstorm #garden

Our first shot at carrots. Photo more impressive than reality — the biggest carrot we got was not 2 inches long. We planted too late in the fall for seed.

The last of the green beans before the snow came. Made a lovely dinner with beet greens, garlic and some fried egg

First snow of the season on what’s left of the zinnias. #garden

Frost is coming, so we’ve picked the last of the peppers.