It was cool before dawn on the first walk of the day. I was thinking about gangsters, and the story I was not going to get to this morning, and it was not until we hit the glass doors that I realized I had forgotten my glasses. There is a lot of stuff to get […]

Charles “Lucky” Luciano enjoys a beer in Italy, after the War   I got tagged with a proposal and will have to work this morning. I was going to generate a story along the lines of “Deal with the Devil,” and it may yet come about the alliance of Naval Intelligence and the mob. The next […]

 Ex-Normandie, USS Lafayette capsized at Pier 88, February 1942 They still don’t know don’t about the fire that stated on the 9th of February in 1942. It was a doozy, and it torched the Glory of France as effectively as the end-run of German panzers around the impregnable barrier of the Maginot Line.   The official […]

  Normandie It is the 4th of July, and there will be fireworks on the Mall tonight, a colorful reminder of wartime sacrifice and revolution. People who have seen the deadly fire-colored real thing sometimes don’t like the sound. It makes them a little nervous, the way all of us feel now when a jet is […]

Big Pink Tater Salad Mom’s Tater Salad by Death Junior   I was going to tell you about the sinking of the Normandie this morning, but that happened a long time ago, and it will keep till tomorrow. The news out of Colombia about the big rescue of the people the FARC has been holding […]

Tall Ships New York Harbor, 1976 during Operation Sail It is almost the 4th of July, and the weather has broken in the right direction. It is sunny but cool in Washington. If it wasn’t so nuts at the office it would be a great time to kick back. The Government customer dropped a contract […]

Respect I am taking the Hubrismobile into the dealer for service this morning for service and have a classified report to pick up on the way, so I won’t be able to do justice to the story. View this as a prologue, and if you want to imagine Aretha Franklin’s magnificent voice singing the refrain […]

The Grassy Knoll The Monstrosity across the Street The small green patch that buffers Big Pink from the new construction monstrosity across Pershing Road is where the dog people go. Some of the new ones, the Rookies, let their dogs off the leash there and the animals love to run. One of the newbies even […]

  The excitement about the party had been building for weeks, ever since Mary Margaret sent out of the invitations. Everyone loves Mary, and Joe was kind enough to put his patio up for her use to cater the affair. The Fifth floor would not have worked. the invite said “three-to-six” and meant business- it […]

Idiots   Yeah, I was awake before the alarm on Saturday morning. The high summer light was going to be coming along shortly, whether I liked it or not, and my first thoughts were that I was screwed. Not the good way, not the lazy Saturday stay-in-bed-way that starts with a sly smile to your […]