Category: DailySocotra

Swamp Postcard Summer

Goodness, a complicated transition to high summer. Mr. Trump claims he is running again; goodness. Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities, is in apparent revolt against the central government. Life is great if you can live live it. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

Rosie Still Rolls

Car People: Rosie Update A car parked in front of a truckDescription automatically generatedIt is car season, and those people who (like me) are obsessed with our shared history. and forged metal and paint. Mom and Dad flogged a station wagon like this version of Rosie from Detroit to El Segundo, CA, to show his […]

Look Up

OK- I appreciate and apologize for the fact that I inflicted my current bucolic lifestyle on you yesterday. It was kind of fun recounting the morning routine at the farm. It is almost as if the full moon was blasting a beam of bright white light through the bedroom window long before dawn, so bright […]

Standard Days

I dunno if it is climate change or what. I am no denier- I mean, the global temperature, based on limited samplings, has rocketed upward by almost a full degree (Celsius) since 1850. So, things change. But it was a cold winter here and I am still chilled in the middle of June when I […]

Swamp Postcard: Games Back in Town!

(Proud new crop of black-headed turkey buzzards in the barn, the birds contemplating doing something foul to my tractor). So, we are all tired. That may account for a certain lethargy on the Congressional Committees, what with the transatlantic travel required to keep up up with the peripatetic 71-year old President Trump. In the last […]

Back to Normal

(Mr. John Dean, disbarred attorney and convicted felon lectures us on the finer points of obstruction of justice.) This has been a tough couple days- Manhattan shuddering with the helicopter crash yesterday that made some think 9/11 was back again. There was a curious void in the regular broadcasts- all the talking heads tried to […]

Dee Em Vee

The approach of this day filled me with dread- not the fear of it arriving, but rather the things that get swept along with birthdays. This had been an emotional week, what with the memorials and celebrations surrounding the ancient conflicts that shaped our world. At some point I had to turn to my own […]

When Time Stood Still

I had a great little story line going for yesterday’s Daily. It had everything, or would have, if I hadn’t spent the morning at the Culpeper branch of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office, on the left just off Lover’s Lane. They work miracles there- they can actually make time stop. Virginia is for […]

D-Day and Midway

I was sitting with Admiral Mac nearly a decade ago at the Willow Bar. Life was good. We were all alive. It was the night on the eve of the Battle of Midway, the Navy’s greatest triumph. I was embarrassed the significance of the date did not come up, and that was sort of strange, […]

Swamp Postcard: London Edition

This has been a busy week for the amateur historians out there. The decisive battle at Midway began on the 4th, ending on the 7th. Two years later, Allied Forces made a bold gamble when Ike looked at the skies on June 5th, and decided the largest amphibious operation in history- and perhaps the most […]