(Grilled corn con quesa, photo courtesy Bonds in Northampton)   Brutal Day. I won’t bore you with the details, but I ended it with a complete understanding of Democracy, Socialism and Fascism.   That is not bad for a single 24-hour period, but I will have to do the set-up. Your government, bless its little […]

(Accused Russian Sleeper Agent Anna (Anya) Chapman. Photo courtesy Anna Chapman)   If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it. –       Sleeper Agent Anna Chapman’s pithy philosophy from her Facebook page. The whole thing is baffling. Why would any current or former superpower spend good […]

(Presidents Medvedev and Obama at Ray’s Hellburger in Arlington. AP photo  by Charles Dharapak)   It is not a gig I would choose now, but it is a pretty good one, and I might have been attracted to it in my youth, about the time I graduated and had no particular future.   Of course […]

I heard the other day that ThinkGeek, an innovative novelty company, had come up with a new gag product. Previous efforts included a bogus fondue pot that worked from a USB connection to your office computer. Funny stuff.   The latest hoax was centered around a re-branded canned meat product. It looks to me like […]

The big opening of the season party happened at Joe’s last evening. Mary Margaret worked all the details, and the event was Sangria-powered and had plenty of food- the classic potato salad, excellent deviled eggs, three bean dip, fiery wings, and Diana Ross’s most triumphant pigs-in-blanket.   If you can believe it, the great state […]

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com Subscribe to the RSS feed!

(Sadamu Komachi. IJN picture in USN archives) Sadamu Komachi was on the flight as well, and like Lt. Sakai, had been badly wounded but returned to service at the bitter end. He bagged 14 Americans in the course of his career, and he “could not bear to see American bombers flying serenely over a devastated […]

(314th Squadron (VH) against Mt. Fuji, 1945. USAAF picture) Bill McCullough remembers when Curtis Lemay’s order to transition to low-level tactics against Japan, changing from high-altitude daylight missions to mass low-level night-time attacks against industrial and population centers on the Home Islands.   The crews and support personnel welcomed the change. The struggle to get […]

(Enos “Country” Slaughter signs a ball for a fan on Tinian) I made a note to tell you the story of that epic series tomorrow, when I have not been driving all over Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun Counties before breakfast. Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com Subscribe to the RSS feed!

Big League Baseball at Isley Field, Saipan, 1945 Bill McCullough was part of the world of Friday Night Lights, the religion that is Texas high school football for 34 years after he got back from Saipan. He coached ball and track, and he recalled some of the best baseball he had seen was right there […]