Author: John A. Ross

Thinking that raking up leaves would be good exercise, I raised the big front door of the garage and went in. I dropped the rake with a clatter into the garden cart and backed out of the garage. As I was turning to go over to the south side of…

Reflecting on my afternoon, I smile ironically at Jack’s firm belief that the cause-and-effect relation satisfactorily explains time and everything that happens. He knows of course that if a ball heading in a certain direction hits another ball standing in its path head-on, the one that was at rest when…

It was breakfast time. Kay put down her cup. “Something wrong?” My head was in my hands, my elbows on the table. I straightened up and looked at her with a despairing grimace. “Marie’s idea that I should use a diary format to write about time did help me to…

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!” Holding high a big Black Forest cake ablaze with sparklers, Marie strode to the table with superb dignity while we sang in honor of Michael Coventree’s felicitously prolonged life. “Happy birthday, dear Michael! Happy birthday to you!” And a happy occasion it…

Our tree-lined street borders a deep woods. In the autumn the supply of dead leaves seems inexhaustible. When yesterday’s litter has been carted off, tomorrow’s wind will inevitably scatter a new swatch of leaves over our lawn. When it rains, some of them will inevitably manage to smear themselves tightly…

Somehow we are always surprised when we have our first snow in mid-December, as if we had never seen the cold white stuff so early before. The snowfall last night was unusually heavy – 27 centimeters. It was still snowing at nine this morning. Jack, our neighbor, has a 4×4…

This Saturday afternoon in December was a dismal and windy one. Sitting with Kay in front of the fireplace for a while, just watching the flames flickering, was pure contentment. Nothing much had to be done and, as we sipped our hot chocolate, nothing much had to be said. I…

Snow was sifting down in the afternoon twilight as I made my way home from the university library. So far I haven’t been able to find a single serious and extensive inquiry into the possible discreteness of time. Writers who bring up the idea at all barely mention it. As…

When I gently shook one of my Christmas presents, its contents clickety-clacked a little, with a heavier rolling undertone. Some kind of game-pieces perhaps? Hmmm. The top of the box portrayed an open, four-level structure of horizontal girders supported by vertical columns. In big letters it informed me: “Here is…

In Wonderland, young Alice met up with the now-famous grinning Cheshire cat. After giving Alice advice, this enigmatic creature disappeared by almost imperceptible gradations until nothing was left but its grin. A most extraordinary phenomenon! The bodiless grin of Alice’s feline adviser raises searching theoretical questions which are much more…