All Purls. No Swine.
It was the first of Bernard Cornwell's "Richard Sharpe" novels to be published, although it ended up, over the decades, being eighth in the chronological order of our hero's history. It was set in July of 1809, amidst the Battle of Talavera, an iconic bookmark during the Peninsular war between the Napoleonic armies and those… Continue reading Sharpe’s Eagle–The Battle of Talavera
Today, July 27, 2024, is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first flight by what was to become the world's first commercial jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet. Almost three years after its 1949 debut, in May of 1952, BOAC (now British Airways) launched the world's first commercial jet-airliner service, flying its Comet 1A between London… Continue reading Celebrating the Early Days of Commercial Jet Flight–By One Who Lived to Tell the Tale
A post today on Ricochet references one of my favorite authors, and one of his comments on Hell. The author is C.S. Lewis, and the quote (from The Screwtape Letters) is We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and… Continue reading “The Doors of Hell Are Locked On the Inside“
God only knows what he had to do with the kitchen staple memorializing his name. Beef bouillon. Chicken bouillon. Even (heaven forfend) vegetable bouillon, mushroom bouillon, or--even--worse. (Don't tempt me.) Godfrey of Bouillon was a leader of the First Crusade, and a significant figure in the subsequent Crusader wars. While I've not been able to… Continue reading In Praise of Godfrey of Bouillon
Dateline July 20, 1969: My immediate family was ensconced in the UK, visiting our grandparents, aunts, uncles and sundry other long-lived relatives and friends before they kicked off, and happy to belong to the tribe that Mr. She would–decades later–come to refer to as the Dúnedain, because of our long-livedness and generally extraordinary compos-mentisness. (A few failures along… Continue reading One Small Step, 55 Years Ago Today
It will be six years ago next Thursday since my stepson Sam died, and I wrote the post below. Today, July 20, 2024, would have been Sam's fifty-ninth birthday: "His family calls him Sam.” It was the afternoon of Monday, December 11, 2017. The phone was ringing, from a number in Pittsburgh that seemed vaguely… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Our Sam
Sigh. https://youtu.be/Kz6pV4uRSc8 Nurse Nellie and not-long-for-this-world US Marine Joe Cable. I have to confess, although I’m really not interested in tying myself too much into knots over it, that it was a bit jarring yesterday to wake up and discover that the young person who’d attempted to assassinate Donald Trump and I share a common… Continue reading How Far Away: Bethel Park SWPA
The "David" mentioned in the post title is the patron saint of Wales. He is believed to have been born somewhere in the last half of the fifth century in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and he lived most of his early religious life as a teacher and preacher. He rose quickly through the ranks as a result… Continue reading Send it Down, David! (Please)
It is true that few of us can worship the self, naked and unashamed for very long. For one thing, it simply doesn't work. Living for his own pleasure is the least pleasurable thing a man can do: If his neighbours don't kill him in disgust, he will die slowly of boredom and lovelessness--Joy Davidman,… Continue reading Quote of the Day: On Self-Worship, Boredom, and Lovelessness
To be clear, I rarely think about feet. Especially poets' feet. They're just not that attractive. But I make an exception for Pablo Neruda's feet for reasons I'll explain, if you'll grant me a minute or two of your time, and allow me to get there in my usual roundaboutatious sort of way. Today is… Continue reading Why I Dream About Pablo Neruda’s Socks