D.C. skyline

The Permanence of Blue

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

A couple of years ago, shortly after we moved back to Arlington, I decided to stroll by our old house, just a mile or so from where we live now. I was standing in front of the house, admiring the improvements the new owners had made to the front yard, when the woman drove up in her mini-van. I was …

Jefferson and Washington monuments

“This is great. We’ll take it.”

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

My wife is not real picky. That is fortunate for me. Otherwise, she might never have decided to marry me. We were visiting different neighborhoods in Baltimore this past weekend in advance of a possible move there next summer, and we happened to run into a woman on the street who turned out to be realtor. The woman was the …

Emma brush soccer

All Emma, In Everything

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

I am standing with my niece in front of my father’s bureau, and I show her the gold-plated watch with the “Hamilton” typed out across its face.  My father loved pocket watches and there are a couple of them still sitting on his bureau so it takes me a moment to find the right one.  The watch I select is …

Aerial view of DC

I Feel The Pain of Everything. Then I Feel Nothing.

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

He was the angry and alienated younger brother of my best friend while I was growing up. My mother sent me newspaper clippings about him when he was a member of a grunge rock band of local renown. She didn’t need to send me anything when he became nationally and then internationally known:  Spin magazine put him on its cover …

Eleven Rules for Effective Writing (aka “How to Write Good”)

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Here are 11 rules for effective writing, with thanks to Kendall Gray of The Appellate Recordfor reminding me of them: Avoid alliteration. Always. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. Avoid clichés like the plague.  (They’re old hat.) Eschew ampersands and abbreviations, etc. One should never generalize. Comparisons are as bad as clichés. Be more or less specific. Sentence …

Achilles Now. Poseidon Too.

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

He was the best octopus hunter in Tolo. It was always an honor whenever he sent one of us boys out to the kiosk to buy him cigarettes:  Karelia ke spirta, parakalo. It was an even bigger honor if he invited you along to hunt for octopus. He did the diving. You stayed on the surface, holding onto the octopi he …

U.S. Capitol building

Meet the Girlfriend

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

My older son brought his girlfriend home to meet the parents. Actually, he came home from college to take care of some personal business and he brought the woman he is seeing along with him. But it has the same practical effect of something potentially more meaningful. My wife picked them up last night at the train station after I …

Jefferson Memorial

From Tide to Tide in Cape Cod

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

We have been coming to Cape Cod with my extended family now for 25 years.  We came first as couples. Then we came with children. With the 13 cousins growing up and the rest of us just getting old, it is unclear how many more years we will cross the Sagamore Bridge to make this trip.  Like a game of …

U.S. Capitol Building

On Mid-Life Career Changes: What I Did Before I Became A Lawyer

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

Ten years ago this month, I walked out of the Ronald Reagan Building carrying a single cardboard box. Having just resigned from the federal government, the box contained all I had to show after an 18-year career:  a coffee mug, photographs, some personal papers, and the plaque they had just given me at a going-away party. The last thing I …

U.S. Capitol Building

Cold Feet on the Morning of Trial

Jamison KoehlerMiscellaneous

It must be pretty intimidating to arrive at the courthouse for trial to find five police officers, an eyewitness, and a complaining witness all sitting in the hallway, laughing and joking with each other and then growing silent as you pass by – all of them there for the sole purpose of testifying against you, their bond a common interest …