Birth of Martin Johnson, Pioneer Wildlife Photographer Oct. 9, 1884 Remember Marlin Perkins in Mutual of Omaha’s 1960s TV show “Wild Kingdom,” and how he left all the rhino-wrestling to his buddy Jim? To say nothing of Steve Irwin’s popular “Crocodile Hunter” forty years later. This post celebrates intrepid forerunner…
The name “Rebecca Smith Pollard” rings no bells in my beady little brain, and neither does her pseudonym, “Kate Harrington.” But the blog post in “The Writer’s Almanac” for September 20, 2011, puts me strongly in mind of my own elementary school education and of my subsequent avocation, living history…
It was on this day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention adopted The Constitution of the United States, which (after ratification by the states) became the nation’s supreme governing document on March 4, 1789. September 17th is also called Citizenship Day, the day on which most immigrants are officially sworn…
Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891) Vice presidents rarely cut any swath, and few people know much about them unless they succeed to the Presidency. Because Lincoln had a different vice president for his second term (Andrew Johnson who became president on Lincoln’s death), his first VP, Hannibal Hamlin, has been all but…
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…
