Beachcombing

My brother Branch, his wife Ruth, and infant son Branch Jr came to Carolina Beach in late 1940 and lived with us for a time at our home on Harper Avenue before acquiring their own abode.  Branch loved surf fishing, and he got to do a lot of it that year.  While he fished, Ruth […]

Congressional Psychoses

Those of us in the general public often think of our representatives in Congress as being somewhat deranged.  Never has that been more true than it is at present. Little more than a decade ago Charles Krauthammer, a medically certified psychiatrist and much honored television commentator, applied the phrase “Bush derangement syndrome” to what he […]

The Impasse

The President and the Democratic Party leaders in Congress have dug in their heels.  Neither side wishes to give an inch in the fight over funding for a border wall. How is the impasse to be resolved?  Is some sort of compromise possible? The Democrats obviously hope that pressures created by the extended partial government […]

Moving to the Beach

The family often vacationed at Carolina Beach in the early 1930s, and in the mid 30s Dad had a beach house built there.  The cottage was located a mile north of the town center and was separated from the ocean shore by sand dunes.  A year or two later Dad had two smaller cottages built […]

Rives Family Roots

My mother was a Rives. (Note: Here I am entering a brief excerpt about the Rives family extracted from a posting on Robert Ryves in Wikitree, an on-line genealogical website.  Following this note, most of the following material in this post is derived from the book Reliques of the Rives by James Rives Childs. Robert […]

Jordan Family Roots

(For an update of the following article, please see “Jordan Family Roots Revisited,” posted August 31, 2021) The Jordan family of Halifax County, Virginia, is related to the Thomas Jordan who arrived in Virginia from southwest England in 1620 or 1623.  The genetic evidence certainly proves this, but a clear line of descent has not […]

Posts on Family

Over the next few weeks there will be a number of very personal posts that give intimate details on my life and my family.  I hope that this is not off-putting.  I think we can all learn a great deal from each other.  All of us have some very interesting histories and experiences, good and […]

Expediency and Honor

The term “expedient” is sometimes translated as an action considered to be  convenient and practical despite possibly being improper or immoral.  We have seen many instances of  expediency in American foreign policy.  Most recently, we may to be seeing it in Syria.  President Trump has said that he is pulling American military personnel out of […]