OK- I found the concluding line to the couplet that ends Uncle Pat’s obituary. I mentioned that it was more work than usual, but after some false starts, I was eventually able to find the publication in which it originally appeared. It was a curious thing, one I should have focused on at the front […]

(Artist Jerry McWilliams painted the scene above from the battle of Raymond, MS, in 1863. The figure on horseback is Colonel Randall McGavock, who was mortally wounded by Union fire and fell into Pat’s arms. He is depicted at the lower left. The great Rebecca Blackwell Drake, a former State Department player was instrumental in […]

The storms seem to have passed, and there are spurts of sunshine on a pleasant Virginia day. It would have been Dad’s 97th birthday today. Maybe better phrased, it is still his birthday, and I remember it that way. I had some plan to continue the story of Great Great Uncle Pat’s wild ride through […]

This has been a cyclone of a year, and one in which taking stock has been a key activity amid the mass confusion. I am trying to order my affairs, sell my hot rod truck, and lessen the impact on the kids when they hav to deal with the mounds of paper and old wood. […]

What a splendid week we have had, so far, close to the shores of the majestic gray-and-brown Potomac as the tropical storm with the unpronounceable name swept up the coast. We were just far enough that only the rains came to us, though millions bore a more difficult brunt of the storm. We had no […]

(A person who could be Dr. Blix, champion of Health, we think.) Alert and well-seasoned readers performed their assigned tasks with alacrity and good faith yesterday. It demonstrated a triumph of editorial integrity, and one of which we are proud. Management at the Daily Socotra was informed in the early review that an incorrect caption […]

(Dr. Birx) I have to say, this has been the best season of national disasters ever. I got a note responding to mine that indicates my Turkish pal has so far avoided trouble with the returning caliphate. Good news, and so far, a disaster avoided. Here, along the old front lines of a war that […]

New week, ya’ll! Local news: We have had some of the urban anger down here on what once were the front lines between Lee’s Army and Grant’s Army. A pair of brothers who had land they did not want to work decided to donate the parcel to the County as a park. It would eventually […]

So, we enter this morning a new month, the eighth of this chaotic year. It is a treat to be part of a historic event that combines so many astonishing things. It is a half century since mass disturbance last plagued our streets and we torched our central cities. Now, here it is again with […]

We are less than a hundred days to the presidential election. It is exciting to be in the midst of crisis and have another one bearing down fast. Here in my home state, absentee voters can cast their ballots up to 45 days in advance, so the time for hard thinking is upon us. Hahaha. […]