Blog

Various ventures into Mr. Scott’s mind.

Cemetery of Memories

The first time I approached the cemetery in Lipnica Wielka was November of 1996, and I headed up for my first experience with All Saints' Day in Poland. I took pictures and made mental notes for my journal: I left my apartment around 4:30 and headed up to the cemetery...

Trstená Supermarket

Just across the border from where I lived in Poland (Lipnica Wielka) and where my wife grew up (Jablonka) is a Slovak town called Trstená. We go there every time we visit family in Poland. I love Trstená because unlike much of Central Europe, it seems frozen in time....

Warszawa Centralna

Looking at some old pictures, I found a shot of Warszawa Centralna train station from about 2002. It was an exterior night shot, and there was little indication of what the station looked like inside. What it looks like now is vaguely similar, but there have been so...
Musevisa

Musevisa

Musevisa, a Norwegian carol by Alf Prøysen from the late 1940s.

14 Years Ago

14 Years Ago

Thoughts about Thanksgiving the year before my current students were born.

Our Pup

Our Pup

No calm moments for a Border Collie — notice the hand…

The Last Beat of My Heart

The Last Beat of My Heart

A song that enchanted me when I was my first year of high school because it was so unlike everything else they'd ever created...

Krakow Past

Krakow Past

I first went to Krakow in the summer of 1996 (June 22 to be precise, according to my journal), catching a train in Radom at five in the morning to arrive some time around eight. I’d just arrived in...

A Day at Table Rock

A Day at Table Rock

Sometimes, I look at the people that surround me, those who are the last people I see before I go to bed and the first people I see when I wake, and I think that I must be the luckiest bloke in the...

Soccer

Soccer

As parents, we spend a lot of our time trying to teach our children manners. We say things like, "Don't take something without asking," and "Wait your turn," and "Don't push." Then we get them...

In the Fields, Eighteen Years Ago

In the Fields, Eighteen Years Ago

Eighteen years ago, I'd just moved back to Poland. Having spent two years in Boston, I'd grown restless and missed my life in rural Poland -- the kids I taught, the friends I'd made, the beauty of...

Maternal Grandmother’s Side

Maternal Grandmother’s Side

They're all strangers, yet all related to me. I don't know a single name, a single face, except that I'm fairly sure that this image, found in my mother's belongings after she passed away, is of her...

The Stream

The Stream

There is a stream that runs the village where my wife grew up. Our relationship began, one might say, by taking long walks to that stream where we would watch her dog play in the water.

A Field

A Field

In the fields around my in-laws' house. These were the fields my wife played in while growing up, the fields in which we walked as our relationship developed, the fields in which my children play...

Field

Field

The two historically most basic crops of my wife's home village: grain for the horses, potatoes for the owners.

House

House

A home in Zab, the village in which my mother-in-law grew up. This is one of several traditional highlander homes, likely to be a century or more old, still inhabited.

Furmanowa and the Tatra Mountains

Furmanowa and the Tatra Mountains

This is prime real estate: an area called Furmanowa in Zab, just at the base of the Tatra Mountains. It's worth an absolute fortune, but still the owner uses it to grow hay for his livestock.