April 10, 2018
Paris Review: The Strange Magic Of Libraries
The Logo
My Father used to say that he turned down an Ivy League scholarship (Brown University) so he could play basketball at West Virginia University with Jerry West (known to NBA fans as “The Logo”). He loved telling the story about a game early in his college career when his parents drove in to Morgantown to […]
February 20, 2018
My Dad, his brothers and a family tradition – the Airedale.
February 19, 2018
My Dad with his Mom and one of his brothers. WashPa proud.
A Continuing Tea Party: “A gripping and sensational tale of violence, alcohol and taxes”
During the late 1800’s, my Great Grandfather grew up in Washington, Pennsylvania – about a half hour west of Pittsburgh. He begat my Grandfather who begat my Dad. That baby in the bottom right of the photo is my Granddad sitting on his Father’s knee in 1915 at a Reunion. James Thompson was awarded a medical […]
The Post Horn
For here were God knew how many citizens, deliberately choosing not to communicate by US Mail. It was not an act of treason, nor possibly even of defiance. But it was a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery. Whatever else was being denied them out of hate, indifference to the power […]
January 18, 2018
In a prosperous democracy that is also a society of winners and losers, any man without an equalizer or at least the illusion of one is by definition ‘underprivileged’. A ‘Sr. Cazador’, quoted by Hunter S. Thompson as a “sporting type of sorts, with a knowledge of triggers and a good eye for openings.”
Feedback 2017
Steven Spielberg’s “The Post,” which for months has been called the right movie at the right moment, felt relevant, if in less magical and obvious ways. It doesn’t have the engine of a classic fairy tale, but rather the power of a populist Frank Capra fairy tale. It tells the story of how the Washington […]
Further On Down
I come from down in the valley Where mister when you’re young They bring you up to do like your daddy done Bruce Springsteen, The River Last week, I told the story about the trip I took on a raft down the Grand Canyon with my Dad. You can find it here. It wasn’t our first time […]
September 21, 2017
Days Of Writing In school, I was all passive voice and trite phrasing. I came of age at a time when the movement in legal writing was away from flowery jargon and Latin maxims. The elders that decided such things wanted muscular simplicity, active voice and simple heavy lifting. The Strunk & White of my […]