Category: History

  • Background Check

    Background Check

    Way back in 2013, when the economy was really being stupid, I took the leap of faith that taking a job in Salt Lake City would be a good move. Prior to finding that job, I’d been through a bad run in a sluggish economy, and having had a few years  trying to be a…

  • What is that pain in my chest?

    What is that pain in my chest?

    A few weeks back, I was walking to the store. It’s a short walk (about 3/4 of a mile) with a very slight grade. I walk a lot, usually a few miles a day, mostly by choosing to walk while waiting for the train, or when going to the market. This time, when I got…

  • Just Git’R’Done on Gun Control

    When I was in third grade, we lived in Fairbanks Alaska, and I wanted to be a grown up. Because Alaska is frontier wilderness, a lot of the activities I remember were around doing things in the outdoors with the family. I wanted to be grown up, so I got a paper route (at eight years…

  • Waves of Grief …

    I was reminded today of the peculiarly clever way that grief occurs over time. I was watching a documentary on Teddy Kennedy yesterday and was struck by the depth of feeling I had to his words at his mother’s funeral. He spoke about how she would be greeted by all the other family members who…

  • Martin Luther King Day – I Have a Dream

    Today is Martin Luther King Day. One day before the biggest inauguration since George Washington, and only 46 years since the famous “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Unlike Steve Martin, I was not born a poor black child. I was however very lucky to be raised…

  • Flying Higher (power)

    When I was a little boy, I used to love to fly those balsa wood airplanes.You know, the ones that came in a flat bag, with thin sheets of balsa wood, a nose weight, a plastic propellor and a really big rubber band that you bought at the local grocery store. They usually had red…

  • They don’t shoot Eagles do They ?

    When I was a boy, we lived in south eastern Alaska in the small chain of islands north of Ketchikan, first on the island of Wrangell, then the island of Petersburg. This was one of the most amazing places to be as a boy, the perfect place to learn about nature, and beauty.In Petersburg, we…

  • A nod to my Dad …

    My dad was a newspaper reporter and editor, and for a time in my youth (and his too, I suppose), he was an editor of a couple of small papers in Alaska. During that period, as the editor, he wrote an editorial column that he called “Weaver’s Loom” where he wrote stories and posted his…