Glenn once told me that he collected old postcards of Westminster, the town where he's manager. That gave me an idea for a Christmas present for him: A collection of old postcards of Laconia, the town where we grew up. I got a few from eBay, and then after we arrived in Laconia Judi and I found an antique store and bought a bunch for cheap. Glenn, of course, didn't know about this. Sshhhh! So... on the day we drove to Vermont to see Glenn, we were sitting in the Chelsea Diner, waiting for lunch to be served, and Glenn told me he had a "special present" for me. And then he whipped out... ...a stack of old postcards of Laconia. His gift for me. For Christmas. Back at the resort I had a stack of many of the same postcards. To give to him. For Christmas. Judi looked at me and I looked at Judi, and although neither of us let on, we knew we were in a play in a real-life theater of the absurd. I accepted the gift with sincere appreciation. (While I had been buying cards for Glenn, I secretly wished I was buying them for myself, hence the sincerity.) Although many of his cards were identical to ones I'd bought, I pretended to be delighted to discover little details. And, honestly, some of the cards were special, that I hadn't seen before, including the one pictured here, which is the old O'Sheas Department Store building. The city demolished this classic building in an act of criminal stupidity during Laconia's disasterous "Urban Renewal." But back to the postcards: Judi and I talked later, after we left Glenn. Of course we realized that if Glenn wanted postcards of Laconia, he could have kept them for himself, rather than giving them to me. So maybe he wouldn't want the cards I had bought for him. But in the end we decided that the best course of action was to come clean. So... ...when Glenn came to stay with us later in the week, I told him about my idea, and my postcard purchases, and gave him a chance to look through them. And it turned out that I had some cards that he hadn't seen, and some that were were special to him. So he kept those as my Christmas present to him. So, for Christmas, Glenn and I gave each other the same gift. But I guess I should expect that from my-brother-Glenn, because what makes this extra-weird is that this is the second time a Christmas present from Glenn has struck an unexpected chord. And the first time involved Judi, too. But that's another story, and another Christmas.... Glenn also loaned me a book called Witness, by Karen Hesse, a Vermont writer who lives in Brattleboro. The book is a novel written in verse. It consists of a series of mostly one-page poems, told by a succession of characters. It makes for very... different... reading. I'll elaborate later, if I have time.