It was not quite as cold yesterday, though that’s not to say we were under a heatwave. After an overnight low of 25 degrees it climbed up to 57 by the afternoon, with winds in the 10 miles per hour range. And wonder of wonders, the sky was blue and there was no rain! We […]
Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you lovers out there, and especially to Miss Terry, the love of my life. Terry, everything I am and everything I ever hope to be is because of you. I love you with all of my being. As I held you when I went to sleep last night I […]
After being gone from home for a month, only posting a blog once a week or so during that time, today I thought I would update you on the overall trip. Before you start, I warn you, it’s going to be a long blog, and I will have some other more specific blogs about things […]
I spent yesterday working on The Hard Years, the fourth book in my Tinder Street family saga, and the title of today’s blog says it all. Today’s chapters included real-life events from the gang wars in Toledo, Ohio in the early 1930s, the life of a soldier between the two world wars, which could sometimes […]
After reading Sunday’s blog about our trip to the Antique Extravaganza in Mount Dora and seeing the picture of the lifelike mannequin of an old man taking a photograph, longtime readers Susan and Ron Wilson set me these pictures of a mannequin security guard they found at a museum in Connecticut. Isn’t it amazing how […]
Note: Here is a repost of a blog from our travels as fulltime Rvers. Atwater, California, located 120 miles east of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley, is the former home of Castle Air Force Base, which opened near there in 1941 as an Army Air Corps Basic Flying School, to meet the needs […]
My father taught me many things, and one of the most important was to never judge a book by its cover. There was a grumpy old man in our neighborhood who never smiled and would barely acknowledge anyone when they said hello to him. Everybody called him Mr. Grouch. One day I said that I […]
In a blog post titled Speeding last week I wrote that when I was stationed at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York during my Army days, my parents lived in Toledo, Ohio, and at least once a month during our slow time when we were not training cadets, I would jump in […]
One of the perks of running a small town newspaper is that you get first shot at some pretty good deals now and then. I’ve always been into guns, classic cars, and motorcycles, and the people working the front desk at all of my newspapers knew that if somebody came in wanting to place an […]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of America’s most beloved presidents, and the only man to hold the nation’s top office for four terms. He was a father figure to all of America, pulling us out of the Great Depression and seeing us through the darkest days of World War II. His Fireside Chats were an […]
I stole today’s blog title from an old Loretta Lynn song, and I think it’s kind of appropriate. I told you last week that I got Terry an AeroGarden as an early Christmas present, and she got it all set up and ready to go. And one of the seed pods that she planted in […]
I enjoy getting emails and messages from people who read my books. It’s always nice to know that they are enjoying what I do. Sometimes they point out errors, and I have no problem with that. In fact, I appreciate it. If there’s a mistake, I want to correct it. A while back my daughter […]
His name was Dave, and the first time I met him I thought he was an old geezer. What hair he had left was white and he walked with a noticeable limp, aided by a cane. But there was nothing old about Dave. Not at all! His daughter was visiting from California and called my […]
Several readers have commented on my new book Tinder Street and the historical facts mentioned in it, saying they learned something new. One reader noticed I used the expression “Hun” and was curious where I came up with that, since only a limited contingency Hungarian regiment was involved in the Western Front in WW I, […]
Ever since we started traveling this wonderful country of ours, a trip to the National Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio had been on our bucket list. When we did go there, it was everything we expected, and more! The Air Force Museum houses what must be one of the […]
Publishing small-town newspapers on the Pacific Northwest coast and in Arizona was a lot of fun, and I like to think that sometimes my publications made a difference in the communities they served. I gained a reputation for stepping on toes, and that was all right with me because sometimes those toes really needed to […]
In a small church cemetery alongside a road in rural Middlesex County, Virginia, we came across the grave of a true American hero. Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller was a small-town boy who went on to become one of the most decorated United States Marines that ever lived. Puller was born and raised on the bank […]
After a lifetime of dedicated service to her country, one of America’s greatest warships is now a floating museum, dedicated to informing the public of her proud heritage and the history of Naval aviation. The Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16), known as The Blue Ghost, was the fifth ship named in honor of the […]
Standing regally on a point of land at the entrance to Ohio’s Sandusky Bay, Marblehead Lighthouse has guided ships and sailors safely along the rocky shoreline of Lake Erie for nearly 185 years. Noted for its beauty by artists and photographers, this grand old structure is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes, […]
Overlooked and unknown to visitors who come to Boston, Massachusetts to see the historic sites related to Colonial America and the American Revolution, the remnants of a fort on a small peninsula on the south side of Boston Harbor date back to the War for Independence. The area now known as Telegraph Hill, in the […]