Today, August 4, is the birthday of the U. S. Coast Guard, which came into existence 222 years ago, in 1790. I have a couple of reasons for an interest in the USCG: 1. My current employment is temporary contract work on real property assessment of US Coast Guard assets….
William Strunk, Jr. One of the most dog-eared books in our household when I was a child was Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. As my siblings and I progressed through our school-years, my mother consistently pushed this book in front of us as we sat down to our…
John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Annie Fields I recently acquired a biography of James T. Fields, the Boston publisher who printed the works of most of America’s great writers of the 19th Century. The fly-leaf of the book states that his second wife, Annie Adams Fields, was Boston’s greatest hostess…
George Smith Blake When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, Captain George S. Blake studied the position of the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis, MD, and quickly realized that the school was indefensible should the rebels attack it. According to a New York Times article “Early Days of…
Charles Gordon Curtis (1860-1953) Charles Curtis crosses our path again, but this is not the Native American Vice President I wrote about last month. This time, it’s Charles Gordon Curtis, who must have been camera-shy, for I find only a couple of photographs of him available online. Charles Gordon Curtis…
Early last evening, Easter Sunday, Charlie Grant, fifer and WWII veteran (among other things), went to his great reward, quietly and peacefully. I had visited with him a week ago Saturday, and found him ready to go, whenever the Lord decided to call him. He undoubtedly had a grand reunion…
USACE Logo On March 16, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson authorized the establishment of a military corps of engineers, which became the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers we know today. This was the second time that this corps was established. The first idea for the army to have organized engineers…
Charles Curtis (1860-1939) On March 4, 1929, a Native American was inaugurated as Vice President of the United States. Charles Curtis served one term with President Herbert Hoover. Curtis was born on January 25, 1860, in North Topeka, in what was then the Kansas Territory. His mother was three-quarters Native…
I’m back again, finally, after a promise of more regular posts. I actually have something of an excuse this time, though, which might qualify as valid. (If it doesn’t, well, that’s too bad. It’s the only one I have.) I was hired to do five months of at-home work, but…
The sail-driven maritime freight trade was entering the autumn of its era when the Dirigo slid down the ways on February 10, 1894. Three hundred and fourteen feet long, built to carry four masts that reached 200 feet above her decks, weighing in at 3005 tons, she made a spectacular…
