A Very Pleasant Place

I remember the depressing words Shakespeare put into Macbeth’s mouth, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creep through this petty place from day to day, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”  Thank God that I do not feel that way.  My life has been full of wonder and joy, and […]

A Grade Too Far

Racial discrimination has been a real and continuing problem in our nation’s history.  Much progress has been made, but it continues to occur more frequently than we like to admit.  It is also true that people sometime play the “race card” unfairly.  My first experience with that sort of incident took place more than five […]

Pantie Raids

Sexuality and the human sex drive is a very powerful thing, and sometimes heterosexual libido erupts in overt and ridiculous ways. I went off to college in 1947, long before the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s-70s. There were female dorms and male dorms, and never the twain should meet. That was the theory, but […]

Where Have the Heroes Gone?

In medieval Europe the troubadours sang of the peerless Roland and of King Arthur and his table round, fearless warriors for truth and justice.  Next to them stood beauteous maidens, virtuous virgins without flaw or blemish. In the early days of our republic an author named Parson Weems published readers for young children.  In them […]

Camping Memories

During the 1960s and 70s our family had many memorable camping experiences.  In the summer of 1966 came the first of the family’s camping adventures.  We put a trailer hitch on our car and rented a tent trailer.  We stayed one night in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, our second night near Raleigh, and then seven […]

The Missing Keys

My eldest son, also nicknamed Sandy, was born while I was overseas in Korea.  It is somewhat sad to think about it, but when Sandy Jr. graduated from high school in 1972 another war was raging, this time in Vietnam.  Sandy had a low draft number, so he joined the Air Force shortly after his […]

Vietnam and Watergate: Conflict and Division

In November 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated.  This event shocked the entire nation and is indelibly written into the memories of those who lived at that time.   In the years that followed the firm political foundations and inter-party cooperation that had existed since Pearl Harbor began to crumble. President Kennedy had gotten the United States […]

Maggie’s Drawers

The following story is primarily for those of you who have some knowledge of guns and the military.  As background, let me explain that I was given a rifle at the age of twelve, and, despite my being very nearsighted and wearing eyeglasses, I learned to be quite proficient in its use.  When my high […]

A Southern Yankee

Sometime during the autumn of 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe, my family moved to Florida.  I believe my father was thinking of retiring there.  Anyway, he rented a house in Punta Gorda, on Florida’s gulf coast, and we settled in for what we believed would be a long stay.  I was […]