Andrew Taylor-Troutman

Wednesday was National Walk to School Day. My neighborhood is in close proximity to four schools, so students ambulate nearly every day of the academic year. For this event, we gathered in the local park to head to school en masse.

A friend told me how he’d recently lost an ex-lover and dear friend. After the phone call, he had...

Ancient cultures regarded rain as a blessing. There were exceptions; Noah comes to mind. But when a wise rabbi noted that the rain falls on the just and unjust alike (Matt. 5:45), he suggested that perspective matters.

I was walking the dog, and a boy passed by on the other side of the street riding his bicycle. As he cruised downhill, he lifted his hands from the handlebars and began to clap in time with the chant, “Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé.”

My elderly friend used to tell this joke about an old married couple sitting on their porch. The...

I learned from Amy Leach’s delightful “The Salt of the Universe” book that a baby groundhog is called a “chuckling.” That’s much cuter than the expletives I used to let fly when the coterie of chucklings devoured my garden like fuzzy lawnmowers.

I rose early this week to gaze upon the August Super Moon, which is also known as the Sturgeon...

When she was three years old, my daughter called them “bird-noculars,” and I picked up an old pair...

With all the headline news this summer, both abroad and closer to home, you might have missed the...

Last Sunday, I walked from the famous Fisherman’s Wharf to the equally renowned City Lights Books;...