All Purls. No Swine.
Got one of those annoying cheery little pop-ups on my phone this morning, announcing that December 22 is National Date Nut Bread Day. I love date nut bread. I was first introduced to it by a co-worker I'll call John (not his real name), in 1987 or so. The large hospital system I was working… Continue reading National Date Nut Bread Day, and the Complications of Memory
Easy. You discover others who haven't done so. They are plentiful. And inspiring. All you have to do is go to ricochet.com to find them.
If Florence Nightingale were still alive, she’d have been 203 years old in 2023. She was born on May 12th, 1820, just a few short months after Mad King George (of American Revolution fame) breathed his last. By the time she died, 113 years ago this week, on August 13, 1910, George V (the current… Continue reading The Lady With the–Cats?
Eighty years ago, on May 16-17 1943, an elite group of airmen, mostly from the Royal Air Force, but also with contingents from Canada and Australia, took off in nineteen Lancaster bombers from the RAF station in Scampton, Lincolnshire. Their mission was clear: Destroy three dams in Germany’s Ruhr valley, thus taking out the hydroelectric… Continue reading Dam Busters +80
...US President George W. Bush ordered air strikes on Baghdad, launching the war for "regime change," and for the ousting of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The war was premised on the the belief that Hussein was manufacturing and staging weapons of mass destruction to be used against his enemies. Such a belief is now deemed… Continue reading Twenty Years Ago Today, on March 19, 2003…
219 years ago, on the night of February 16, 1804, a young Lieutenant in the United States Navy led the first of his two expeditions that year into Tripoli Harbor, this one to set fire to, and destroy, the frigate USS Philadelphia, which--some months earlier--had run aground and been captured by the Tripolitan army of… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “The Shores of Tripoli”
Thomas Herbert Mapson was my Auntie Betty’s father. (Strictly speaking, she wasn’t my auntie–being my great-grandmother’s niece–and her given name wasn’t Betty–they were Jenny Alice May–but “close enough for gubmint work,” as they say. He was born and baptized in Bilston, Staffordshire in the UK, on July 4, 1878. Given what I’ve found out about my… Continue reading In Memory, Thomas Herbert Mapson
A Ricochet post from four years ago, on November 10, 2018. Reposted today, November 10, 2022, in honor of the 247th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Some months ago, a United States Marine Corps career officer of my acquaintance observed that, for a foreigner, for a civilian, and for a woman, I seem… Continue reading United States Marines I Have Known and Loved–And a Couple of Others
Thus spoke President Harry Truman of Ernest Taylor Pyle. Ernie Pyle was born 122 years ago today, on August 3, 1900 in Dana, Indiana. He died not quite 45 years later, on April 18, 1945, in the Iejima Okinawa Prefecture of the Empire of Japan, killed in action while doing what he loved. Having missed… Continue reading “He deserves the gratitude of all of his countrymen”
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. This is the quote attributed to General George S. Patton in his extemporaneous remarks at Boston’s Copely Plaza, on June 7, 1945. There’s no written record (on his part) of his saying such a thing,… Continue reading Quote of the Day: From ‘Old Blood and Guts’