I know Mother’s Day is over for this year, but… I’ve been catching up on some favorite podcasts recently, and happened to hear about a tremendous feat of mothering. We all know that octopuses are remarkable animals. But in 2007, a robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs at the
Just before school ended, one of the permanent teachers asked if I’d ever seen anything like this pandemic before in my lifetime. At first I was a bit taken aback, but when I realized I was (by far) the oldest person in the room, I said no, I hadn’t. This crisis is going to upend
Here’s something to think about during this Memorial Day weekend. In 1877, the first black man graduated the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1940, the Army promoted a black to the rank of general. But the U.S. Navy was more bound to tradition. At the beginning of World War II, African Americans
What have I been doing at home these past weeks? I realized I’ve written 19 short stories over the past several years, seven of which have been published on the Bewildering Stories website (http://bewilderingstories.com/). So I put them all together into a book that’s now available on Amazon.com. The book comes in two flavors —
My first memory of my uncle’s workshop was a dirt floor. It was tacked onto the side of his dairy barn, so it was no big deal. I think it stuck in my memory because it was my first natural floor that wasn’t intended for animals. Such floors are fine for barns, but problematic for
We have a lot of slang sayings in English. How they originate, and how they change over time, can lead to some interesting stories. First, have you heard of the expression “parting shot” ? The modern definition is “a final critical comment.” But its genesis is distinctly ancient. It origin is probably the adjective Parthian, which
In August 2019, I announced the publication of a story about a girl and a very special doll. One story has led to three, and now all three are available at Amazon.com in multiple formats — Kindle downloads ($1.99 each), Kindle Unlimited (free to members), and in paperback ($4.99 each). They can be accessed at
I know this is ferociously bad timing, but once we get past this pandemic, what will be the next problem to hit us? There are many ways to approach this, depending upon which experts you listen to, but here is one viewpoint, under the catchy title “Experts Knew a Pandemic Was Coming. Here’s What They’re
Earlier today, I was talking politics with a friend and the question of supporting President Donald Trump came up. Should you support him in this time of crisis because he is the president, even though you don’t agree with him? In doing so, are you supporting the country for a greater good, or just him
As a Disney fan, I know all about Richard and Robert Sherman, the Academy Award-winning songwriters with credits like Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. I’ve read all about their lives in the autobiographical Walt’s Time (Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998). In this book they relate how they longed to follow in the footsteps of their
