Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
My Olympic Moment — The Start of the Women’s Marathon
I didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe it was because I was getting up at 4 am, or because I was in a strange bed (I was at my friend Ken’s house to save travel time), or because I was going to help with the first women’s marathon in Olympic history. We were up and
My Olympic Moment — The Orientation Meeting, Part 2
When we reconvened one of the topics was — security. There were no, repeat no, anticipated security problems. None. The possibility was very remote. However, even though there will be security people, and one of the three radio nets will be reserved for security, they wanted race marshals who will be alert, intelligent, and capable
My Olympic Moment –The Orientation Meeting, Part 1
The Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) was nothing if not prompt. The meeting began precisely at 7:00 with a slap of a palm to the podium. The first of six speakers welcomed us. I quickly lost track of who was what. It takes a big bureaucracy to put on an Olympics. First, we were
My Olympic Moment, Revisited
The start of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo has reminded me of my own Olympic moment. In 1984, I was living in Anaheim, CA when the Summer Olympics came to Los Angeles. This was not only a chance to see some of the world’s greatest athletes, it also provided a way to give back to
A Proposal for Renaming Military Installations
It is not my intention to rehash the controversy surrounding military installations named for Confederate leaders. But a recent article on Time magazine’s daily email The Brief got my attention. It seems there is a surprising imbalance in who we are choosing to honor in our base naming. According to the article, there are almost
Of Billionaires and Their…Toys?
So what did you think of Richard Branson’s foray into space? To recap, on Sunday, July 11, 2021, Sir Richard Branson, pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, and employees Beth Moses, Colin Bennett, and Sirisha Bandla boarded SpaceShipTwo, a winged plane with a single rocket motor that Branson’s company Virgin Galactic has been developing for the past twenty
Revenge of the Goldfish
In my younger years when I was a Boy Scout, my small hometown had a street fair for a weekend one year. Our scout troop, in a moment of temporary insanity, decided to offer a goldfish booth as a fundraiser. I’m sure you’ve seen these somewhere before — toss a Ping-Pong ball at a table
This isn’t our only Age of Acrimony
If you think the current political period is divisive, consider the era following the Civil War. It was a time when some thought our very democracy was broken. The trauma of war was followed by economic and technological disruption, and many turned to extreme partisanship. The result was an increased voter turnout in the closest,
Now The Fish Could Be Addicts
I’ve just run across another unusual way our civilization is affecting the environment. Our prolific drug habits may be addicting fish. According to a recent laboratory study, published July 6th, 2021 in the Journal of Experimental Biology, freshwater fish can get hooked on methamphetamine that washes into the waterways to the point that they actively seek
Another View of the 4th of July
Happy 4th of July Monday, the day my community is celebrating! These celebrations of parades, cookouts and fireworks have become de rigueur for us, but did you know this was all predicted? The day after the Continental Congress passed the Declaration of Independence, founding father and second president John Adams wrote a letter to his