The final round
Today is the final round of the Masters tournament. As I do each year, I'll spend much of the afternoon watching. It's the only time of the year I watch…
Time capsule: December 26, 1982
At Christmas 1982 I got a very special present. The year before, Santa had brought my brother a Sears stereo that had a cassette recorder with microphone jacks. I'd driven…
Take a break, Driver 8
For those of us in the teaching business, so many things not related to teaching have to wait until the summer months. Even then, some things we do have some…
In the bleak mid-winter cold
It was a strange week. Sunday was deceptively calm. Old movies (including one with a hilarious supporting role played by my spiritual godmother Eve Arden), watching the football playoffs and…
Reality
The new week begins with an event we've been anticipating for a while. Since November, there has been an endless array of think pieces about what it all means, what…
The Video Archive, Vol. 1
Our family bought its first VCR in April 1985. To me, being able to watch movies on it was only half the fun. It was the ability to record stuff…
Time Capsule: Life, Nov. 24, 1958
Too many things on my mind are failing to cohere into a decent post (or series thereof), so why don't we dive back into the stacks, eh? Here's the November…
The Fifth Column of Decency: Life, Sept. 23, 1957
One of my favorite pastimes on a lazy afternoon is to leaf through old magazines in various online archives. The big Life magazine archive is a particular joy to me,…
A day with the Big Ship
I didn't have "weekend trip to Philadelphia" on my bingo card back in July. But life happened, as it will. The ocean liner United States has been a long-standing fascination…
Time capsule: November 19, 1979
Many years ago when I started working on a few projects, I made the investment into a Newspapers.com subscription. As it turned out, the projects took a back seat. Having…