All Purls. No Swine.
Yes, perhaps it's a bit blasphemous, a corruption of Matthew 16:23. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Some years ago now, I wrote a post on Ricochet about the "Three Snowmen," the last cold-weather intervals of Spring before it's safe to begin serious planting and garden work outside. April 21,… Continue reading Get thee behind me, Ice Saints!!
For those who don't know, guinea worm is a parasite which lives in contaminated water, and has long been a scourge of West African nations, a parasite which invades and infests its hosts via the digestive tract, and eventually migrates to extremities like the lower leg, blistering and bursting painfully before the worm gradually emerges--just… Continue reading Dracunculiasis–Guinea Worm
On this April 16, 2026, the day that would have been my grandmother Molly's 128th birthday, I bring back a post originally published on Ricochet on April 16--Easter Sunday--2017. Happy Birthday, Granny! (I've made just a few small corrections, updates, and edits.) My grandmother Molly could be a rather stern old lady. She was born… Continue reading Happy 128th Birthday, Granny Molly!
271 years ago today, on April 15, 1755, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published. It was groundbreaking, the first attempt by an individual to round up and define the words that--themselves--defined us as Englishmen: Camelopard, noun: An Abyssinian animal, taller than an elephant, but not so thick. He is so named, because… Continue reading Happy 16th Amendment Day! 😬
Of course, the title of this post is a misquotation of in hoc signo vinces, a motto dating back to Roman times, to an advisor to the Emperor Constantine, and a phrase which has--over the years--been attributed as the source of numerous miraculous visions prior to important battles, usually with Christians on the one side… Continue reading “In Hoc Signo Vincible”
I remember the day, on Church Lane in Handsworth, at a time very different, in the late 1950s. With my maternal grandparents and my mother. Early church service (the children's service) at St. Mary's. Sermon by the vicar, the Reverend James Charles Harrison Tompkins, he who my father suspected had always had a lifelong infatuation… Continue reading On This Easter Sunday