First Robin: Musings From An Empty-Nester

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Many years ago my sisters rescued a baby bird who had been separated from its nest during a storm.  Acting on the advice of our veterinarian neighbor, we fed peanut butter bread-balls into its open beak.  The redness of the little bird’s throat faded with every ball. Transforming himself from a jumble of spindly bone and wet feathers into what …

They Make Me Wear This Jersey

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Dear George: Without children at home to figure out all-things-electronic for us, Susan and I can’t get our television to work.  So we walk over to a Sports Bar on Charles Street to watch the Redskins game.  I have not missed a single play since RG-III joined the team.  Susan is not a big football fan but she likes to …

Living Next Door to the “House of Cards”

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Our “House of Cards” neighbor gave me a tour of the house.  I felt honored to get inside, considering that we now have carloads of young people who pull up to photograph themselves outside on the front step.  At first I didn’t realize what was going on, and when I agreed to photograph a group of the young people all …

U.S. Capitol building

Woman Doing Good

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

During the second week of our empty-nesting, Susan and I take the train up to New York.  She is accepting an award from SELF magazine as a “woman doing good.” I hang out at the hotel drafting a brief while she does publicity and makeup things at SELF.  Then we head over to Riverpark, a restaurant on the East River, …

Jefferson Memorial

With The Rush of Adrenaline Came Anger

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

I got held up on my way to Union Station today.  Or at least I think I did. I had finished up early at court and was heading over to the station to catch the next MARC train, and I was walking through what you could euphemistically call a “transitional” neighborhood near the food kitchen on E Street. I was …

It Will Be Our House

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

You buy an axe.  The axe consists of two parts, a handle and a blade. After six months, the blade breaks and you replace it with another one. After another six months, the handle breaks and you replace it with another handle. The question they ask in your Philosophy 101 class in college is this:  Is this the same axe …

D.C. skyline

I am your 4:00 o’clock appointment

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

So I walk into the building for a meeting with our new banker in Baltimore, and I notice that everyone seems to be unusually surly towards me. The security guard tells me to take off my hat, and when I tell him who I want to meet with, he motions me toward a row of chairs and then ignores me …

My Children Are City Kids

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

My children are pleasantly surprised when they see the new house and neighborhood. They are city kids at heart. Although a bicycle is stolen from the garage within moments of our arrival, the perpetrators taking advantage of moving men preoccupied with something going on inside the house, the children walk to the hardware store for some extra surge protectors and …

U.S. Capitol Building

We Used To Live In The Steinberg House

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Having sold our house in Virginia, we are now renting it back from the new owners. We will do this until we move to Baltimore in July. No longer an owner of this house, I step out of the shower this morning to find a tree guy poking around in our back yard. I stick my head out the back …