Memories and Recipes or Cook Liberally (Volume I)
Some time after my father's death, I began to dabble a bit in genealogy, attempting to find the historical documents that supported the family lore. Coincidentally or not, at the same time I began...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - Halloween Edition
As we approach this election, I have to admit I'm getting a tiny bit tired. The phone-banking, after-rally cleanups, sign-posting, GOTVing, as well as reading the editorials coast to coast, listening...
View ArticleRuby, Ruby or you CAN teach an old Dem new tricks!
Like many of us, I spent Tuesday on the front lines of Freedom, in my case, in Sumner Co., TN, just northeast of Nashville. I'd like to share the story of one of my memorable experiences from that...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - Post Election Special (with Poll and Pie)
Well it's been a busy week here at our place, and an exciting one, too. Worked like a demon all last weekend phone banking, then all day Tuesday, trying, among other things to "snag and drag" voters...
View ArticleDecember 7 - Honoring those who kept the home fires burning
This morning I got a call from my 88-year old Aunt. As we chatted about various family comings and goings, she stopped to reflect on her recollections of December 7, 1941. Even before the news of...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - Holiday Letter Edition
Been working hard to get it all done before the big events start with your tribe? Take a break and join me for a cup of your favorite beverage. I don’t want to put dessert out before dinner, but...
View ArticleCully Stimson apologizes to detainees' attorneys
In a letter to the editor published in the Washington Post on January 17, Cully Stimson has apologized for his earlier comments damning those who would give their time to represent alleged terror...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes: Incident on the California Bus
Sunday evening and the dinner dishes are cleared away. While the washer runs, time to pour a drink and pull a chair up to the kitchen table for some after-dinner chat. This week, I was particularly...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - Irish Potato Famine Edition
Welcome to my kitchen! Clear yourself a spot and pull up a seat around the table. I hope you don't mind the papers, I've been writing a letter to the next generation in my family. I was inspired...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - The Bunny's Tale
Nice to see you in the kitchen tonite! I didn't cook much tonite, it was too nice a day and I got wrapped up watching the deer and the wild turkeys in the back. But there's always time for a little...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - Mother's Day Race Edition
If you've finished your own Mother's Day celebrations or remembrances for today, I'd like to invite you to spend a few minutes with mine. Mom's in a nursing home now, no longer ambulatory, and most of...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - The Wabash Cannonball
Happy Father's Day! We've done our celebrating around here, and the spousal unit is indulging in a little well deserved R&R, so I'm left with a few minutes to myself in the kitchen. With my own...
View ArticleR.I.P. Tommy Makem 1932-2007
This is really brief for a diary, but I'm sure there are plenty of folk in Chicago and across the world who might stop for a moment to remember the incomparable Tommy Makem, who died last night of...
View ArticleBlue Laws for a Green Earth?
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, a little spiritual indulgence that each of us can - and does - partake of from time to time. In my own case, my feeble efforts as a parent leave me often pondering how...
View ArticleMy 9/11 Flag-Waving Rant
It may have been that my coffee was overcaffeinated this morning, when I opened my email and saw a note from a relative. It was one of those "spam everyone you know" chain emails, and this is what it...
View ArticleWant to buy a pool table, Rep. Boehner?
Diarist's note: All the events in this story are true, however, in the interest of the privacy of the parties other than myself, names have been changed. We had quite a galvanizing experience a few...
View ArticleRacism and a Teachable Moment
It was just another rainy Saturday here in Tennessee when I opened my email. There was a note from a former student - actually about a fifth generation forwarding of one of those awful e-screeds. This...
View ArticleRacism and a Teachable Moment - Part II
In part I, I described an unfortunate - make that ugly - email I received from a former student. I'm still seething, but thanks to the gracious help of a number of commenters, I was able to craft a...
View Article"Obama To Charge Vets For Treatment of Service-Related Injuries"
That was the title of the angry email that made its way into my inbox this afternoon. Ordinarily, I would just delete and ignore that sort of thing, but the sender had been a recipient of my Obama Top...
View ArticleIs adoption an option?
Absolutely. Not for everyone, but not to be overlooked, and most of all, not to be looked down upon. A recent diary entitled "Is adoption the better option" reprinted an angry rant from a...
View ArticleUn-American Civics lessons in the public schools?
When I got up this morning, I did my customary surf of the news and discovered the story about President Obama's planned address to schoolchildren scheduled for September 8. Living in a district where...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - The Great Storm
From the safety and relative mild climate of my home in the middle south, I've been watching the stories of the snow which has swept across much of the country and buried whole cities, including...
View ArticleA Good Fund of General Knowledge
Those were the words at the bottom of the six page diagnostic evaluation of my father, some eleven years ago. Sadly, the reason for the evaluation was that my father's cognition had clearly...
View ArticleFrom the Irish Famine Commission Papers
I dabble in a bit of geneaolgy from time to time. It's a great entertainment, especially now that it can be done at any time from the computer at home. So I hope, on the eve of St. Patrick's day,...
View ArticleLabor Day Music
If you enjoy any kind of humane working conditions - a 40 hours week, a lunch break, vacation, sick days, any kind of workplace safety measures, any employee benefits - you know you owe them to...
View ArticleWherein I get my Irish up
It started out innocuously enough. A friend posted a link to Gail Collins' column skewering Newt Gingrich, whose patriotism apparently caused his infidelity ("The Framers made me do it?") A couple of...
View ArticleNotch Babies
With the possible exception of one Nonaganerian Kossack I'm aware of, there probably aren't any notch babies reading this, and there may be plenty who've never heard the term, but for seniors of a...
View ArticleA memory on Mothers' Day
Both of my parents were the grandchildren of immigrants who fled An Gorta Mor, The Great Hunger of mid-19th century Ireland. My father, the son of a widowed telegrapher for a stock exchange, spent...
View ArticleThe Great Fire redux
This is a partial rerun of a piece I did several years ago. As today is the 140th Anniversary of the Great chicago Fire, I thought it might be worth sharing. What lessons can we learn from these...
View ArticleWherein a Republican small businessman begs the Senate for regulation
While going through a box of my late mother's things, I came across a bundle of papers, folded neatly in three as for an envelope. Upon opening the bundle, I realized that I had come across a little...
View ArticleUniform Pants Needed
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon around la hacienda K. Spousal unit was taking advantage of a little break in the weather to do a last bit of yard work before winter, and I was a bit at sixes and...
View ArticleOh. my. G*d.
I used to teach Sunday school to fifth graders. It will take those poor kids decades to unlearn what I taught 'em. We did the usual bible stories, and I would, well, explain things a bit from time...
View ArticleLiveblogging St. Patricks Day with the Shamrock American Kossacks: Green...
Top o' the morning to you. It's grand to celebrate this greatest of holidays with my friends at the G.O.S. As an Irish American raised in Chicago, I was always keenly aware that my heritage had...
View ArticleThe Dinner Table Conversation
Author's note: This story was inspired by a post by Meteor Blades. The names of the parties, as well as certain other details, have been changed for privacy, but the story is based on real events....
View ArticleThe Red-Headed Jewish Kid
Like so many young men his age, Jim was drafted as the prospect of a new war began to loom on the European horizon. He was inducted in Rockford Illinois and began basic training. Just as it was...
View ArticleLost in Plain Sight
I don't know much about her, but she had a hard life. She first appears in Liverpool, in the slums of Scotland Road, in the 1851 census, living with her husband, mother-in-law, teenaged brother-in-law...
View ArticleShamrock Roundup
It's a glorious day for a celebration, as the The Nationalist reminds usForget austerity, Forget the property tax. Forget the weather. It's that time of the year again for the Irish to celebrate.We may...
View ArticleShamrock Roundup
Top o' the morning to you! We'll step off the curb and start the parade this year with a look at the world as seen from the other side of the pond. As you can see, many of the issues are universal,...
View Article2015
Failte!We've come to the day, and as we do each year, we offer you the Shamrock Roundup, for a look at the news and the pundits from the other side of the pond:The Irish Independent reports the...
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