For as long as I can recall, my favorite Christmas story has been Charles Dicken’s The Christmas Carol. I don’t remember exactly when I first heard the tale, but I think it was through print when my Mother read it to me as a child.… Read More
The harvest moon has been glowing beautifully in the evenings here in the last official week of fall. It’s still hot outside, of course, but the days have taken on a fallish flavor, slightly cooler, slightly duskier, slightly less intense. The mood has prompted… Read More
Ah, September at last. It’s been a long year, and a long hot summer, so the arrival of September brings relief, at least to the spirit if not yet to the body. With my biological clock having long ago been set to the circadian rhythms… Read More
It hit 108.7° (42.6C) in Paris at the end of July, breaking a previous record of 104.7° set in 1947. The chief architect working on the Notre-Dame cathedral said he feared the vaulted ceilings damaged in April’s fire could collapse because of the rapidly drying… Read More
Next week marks the 50th anniversary of a major event in American history: the Apollo 11 moon landing. On July 20, 1969, at precisely 4:18 p.m. EDT, Neil Armstrong fulfilled the promise of a new generation by becoming the first man to set… Read More
There was a time when my phone rang almost constantly while I was at home, and my answering machine filled up with call-backs when I wasn’t — and I KNEW all these people and wanted to talk to most of them. I liked… Read More
Most Americans know that Memorial Day honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. What people might not realize, however, is that Memorial Day had its beginnings right after the Civil War. By 1866, many towns and cities… Read More
