I enjoyed Rick Bailey’s new collection even more that his last! And Now This: A Memoir in Essays is filled with serendipitous connections between his experiences and sometimes strange twists of thought, his life and travels, and his past and memories. He addresses the universal and the personal, reflections on aging and the pandemic, with humor and thoughtfulness all combining into a delightful reading experience.

If Bailey hadn’t heard a Sousa march on the radio, taking him down memory lane to his high school marching band days then writing about it and researching Sousa, I would never had heard of The Quilting Party March. You an hear it here. As a quilter who learned around a quilt frame with other women, I wonder if playing this march could have increased our productivity.

Often, his reflections become a teaching moment. Eating at McDonald’s with his dad, he considers ketchup delivery systems, and how “ketchup is central to the American cuisine, so central it really ought to be a food group unto itself,” and then shares the origin of the product. See–memory, insight, and elucidation all in one.

I love when he mentions Michigan places I know about. The orchard where he went for cider and donuts. Farm markets. Pinconning cheese. And because we are close in age, it is a happy surprise to learn what we have in common, like reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn in college. He also takes me to places I have never been, to Italy, the wonderful food, taking early morning walks on near-empty Italian streets, his wife’s family.

I laughed at his misreading a sign as “Cash for Cats,” and thinking, “the economy has been in the crapper, but has it come to that?” Organizing his photographs on to an external hard drive, he wonders, “how many pictures of tagliatelle do I need?” (Sounds like me, but with garden photos and pics of what I have read or served for dinner.)

Then there are the more somber moments. Early morning Covid walks, social distancing but looking for the dogs they always pet. Been there, did that. The 3 a.m. wake-up thoughts, dealing with an aging body, knowing one is on the downhill side of life. Oh, yeah. His wife asks him to wear a helmet when skiing. Baily writers: “This age thing. Dylan Thomas comes to mind. “Rage against the dying of the light.” But to me, this isn’t about rage. I’m not there yet. It’s about horsing around against the gradual, almost imperceptible diming of the light.”

Bailey is always entertaining, often spurs laughter, but there is nothing lightweight about these essays.

I received a free egalley from the author in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. ( )