All Purls. No Swine.
So here we are on February 22, 2025, all set to observe George Washington's 293rd birthday. Right? Not so fast. It's true that, for years, February 22 was a national holiday in the United States. Banks were closed. Schools were closed. No mail was delivered. Department stores nationwide celebrated the end of the "white sales"… Continue reading Happy Belated Birthday, George Washington!
Thus spoke Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, just before agents of his archenemy Oliver Cromwell chopped off his head 376 years ago this month, on January 30, 1649. Personal, political, and religious modesty wasn't his jam, as even a momentary examination of Charles's life will demonstrate. He had, during his years of… Continue reading QOTD: “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown”
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion Ah! The sainted Rabbie Burns. Scotland's national poet. Romantic to the end. Socialist. Raconteur. A man who dropped his seed wherever he felt like it, upon whichever woman struck… Continue reading Burns Supper Night: 2025
An oldie but (to my mind) a goodie: There are some personal anniversaries I celebrate in my iPhone calendar app. Birthdays, death days, anniversaries, significant--even tragic--events of family, friends, and loved ones. Plenty of all those. Perhaps more than my fair share of a couple of them. But a few events superimpose themselves, irrespective of… Continue reading It’s The Eve of St. Agnes (Again)
A repost, because it matters: Here dead we lie because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; But young men think it is, and we were young. —A.E. Housman I think of Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) as my “hometown”… Continue reading Uniquely Human Memories–2024
A popular modification (so my mother told me) of perhaps the world's most ubiquitous Christmas hymn, from the year 1936. And a replay (mostly) of a post from some years ago, both here and on Ricochet: I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King… Continue reading “Hark the Herald Angels Sing…Mrs Simpson’s Got Our King!”
At the time, it took a little while for "breaking news" to encircle the globe. Unsurprisingly, though, Hawaii addressed it in a timely fashion, in an "extra" edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, on Monday, December 7 itself: The sub-heading reads, "SIX KNOWN DEAD." There would turn out to be more than 2,300 dead U.S.… Continue reading December 7, 1941: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
Whoops. I missed it. Yesterday, November 29, 2024 was the 126th birthday of one of my favorite writers in all of recorded history, Clive Staples (Jack) Lewis. I've written about him often, even when it wasn't his birthday, but today I'm going to do a bit of a rehash of a post from a few… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “To Love is to be Vulnerable”
...on November 18, 1978, I was sitting in the little snack bar in the base station of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington (a short mountain, comparatively speaking, but one which has its own set of challenges for climbers), prior to setting out on an expedition with the late Mr. Right, “when our love was young,” as… Continue reading 46 Years Ago Today, in Jonestown, Guyana….
Today, November 12, 2024 is the 70th anniversary of the closure of Ellis Island, once the foremost inspection and processing station for prospective immigrants to the United States of America. Untold millions passed through its gates during its 64 years of operation, and it stands today as a museum highlighting the history of the United… Continue reading Ellis Island, A Personal Retrospective