Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
How Much Do You Know About Money?
I was out shopping Saturday night and I heard a cashier marvel about receiving a $100 bill. Is that the largest bill in circulation? That piqued my curiosity, and I got on my smart phone. According to the official website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/denominations.aspx), the denominations of currency now in production are
Terrorism and the Potential of Tomorrow
I wrote this a long time ago. It was published on the Dayton Daily News editorial page in about 1990, although I’d have to dig out the date. I’m reprinting it here because it seems even more relevant today. My brother came home safely. I think about this every time there is another senseless
A Milestone for the Steam Engine
Mention the steam engine, and most people think of James Watt. Actually, the steam engine goes back to the 1st century AD — the earliest known design, the aeolipile, was described by the Greek mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria, as recorded in his manuscript Spiritalia seu Pneumatica. On July 2, 1698, British engineer Thomas Savery was
Handwriting on the Wall
Today I’ve been going through my mother’s papers (you may recall she died in April) and I found an interesting poem, the kind she liked to tape to the refrigerator door: Handwriting on the Wall A weary mother returned from the store, Lugging groceries through the kitchen door. Awaiting her arrival was her 8-year-old
Maybe It’s a Geisha Girl
I have some of my best ideas while running. (Something to do with more oxygen to the brain, I suppose.) This weekend I remembered a story from one of my first marathons, although this time it was in the aftermath of a race. I was in the 1984 Honolulu Marathon. Two nights before, there was
Happy 4th of July
If you really want to learn about the 4th of July, I would recommend “Fun Facts for July 4” at the Washington Post website. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/03/fun-facts-for-july-4/ For example, three of the first five U.S. presidents died on July 4. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, the 50th anniversary of the country’s birth. (Adams’ last words were
An Essay on Failure
This is an essay I wrote several years ago, and now is as good a time as any to drag it out. Have you ever heard of me? No? Actually, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. I’m not very famous and few people do know who I am. So far in my life I just haven’t
What is Asteroid Day?
Yesterday I received an email from The Planetary Society about Asteroid Day. Beginning at the beginning, The Planetary Society is an organization for people interested in anything involving space — “We create. We educate. We advocate.” One of their latest activities has been to support the LightSail experiment — using the solar wind for
Some Thoughts on Learning Foreign Languages
I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have been able to do quite a bit of foreign travel. So much of history never makes it into your average history book, and you don’t appreciate this until you actually visit some of the places you read about to see for yourself. Foreign travel also exposes
Happy Birthday to the Typewriter
From The Writer’s Almanac, June 23, 2015: “The typewriter was patented on this date in 1868, by Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sholes was a newspaperman, and he was driven to invention out of necessity: His printers went on strike. He and two colleagues set out to invent a machine to print letters on