Few books read once in adolescence made as permanent an impression on me as Frank Norris’s novel, The Octopus: A Story of California (1901). Wheat farmers squeezed into…
Since Facebook has told the world today’s my birthday – my Social Security and Medicare (Republicans willing) birthday – I wanted to honor the day by adding my hometown to…
Some things about ‘working on the railroad/all the live long day’ haven’t changed much over the years. In the Spring of 1883, a Philadelphia baseball team entirely composed of one-armed men took…