When Peter Kelleher’s 33-year-old son Travis passed away in 2016 after battling addiction and homelessness, Kelleher knew he wanted to help those battling the same fight Travis did. What started off as making hot soup and delivering it to the homeless in Brockton, Massachusetts, has now grown to a regional effort aimed at not just […]
Legend has it that, in 1849, a mechanic named Walter Hunt owed a friend $15 and decided to invent something new in order to earn the money to repay him. He invented the safety pin. On April 10, 1849, Hunt received a US patent for his invention. The anniversary of the day when the patent […]
March was named after the Roman god Mars, who was regarded as the guardian of agriculture and warfare. March is National Maple Sugar Month, International Hamburger and Pickle Month, and, ironically, National Nutrition Month. We also celebrate National Peanut Butter Lovers’ Day, Banana Cream Pie Day, National Pound Cake day, Cheese Noodle Day, Frozen […]
Recently, our son Thom who is a very talented artist, was asked to produce a drawing of a likeness of Chief Oratam, of the Lenape Native American Nation, for a silent auction fundraiser to be held by the PTA of the Haledon (New Jersey) Public School. Affixed to the back of the framed drawing was […]
During the 80’s and 90’s, Frank and I were blessed with the opportunity to vacation in England several times. On a couple of those occasions, one of our sight-seeing highlights was a visit down the Thames River to the spectacular Great Thames Barrier. We had never heard of the barrier before and first encountered it […]
Although many of my classmates at Bishop Conaty Memorial High School (Los Angeles) studied shorthand, typing (on manual typewriters), bookkeeping, and other office practices, I was college-bound and had already taught myself to type, so I focused on the requisite “college prep” classes (languages, math, science, etc.). Ten years later, I came to regret not […]
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” popularly known as “Santa’s ninth reindeer,” is usually depicted as a young calf with a glowing red nose who barely has antlers. He is the lead reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. The luminosity of his nose is so great that it illuminates the team’s path through even the worst […]
The first reference to Santa’s sleigh being pulled by a reindeer appears in Old Santeclaus with Much Delight, an illustrated children’s poem published in New York in 1821. The names of the author and the illustrator are not known. The poem, with eight colored lithographic illustrations, was published by William B. Gilley as a small […]
The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620. By the fall of 1621 only half of the Plymouth Pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast. The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days. The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the […]
The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident occurred on December 20, 1943, when, after a successful bomb run on Bremen, Germany, 2nd Lt Charles “Charlie” Brown’s B-17 Flying Fortress (named “Ye Olde Pub”) was severely damaged by German fighters. Luftwaffe pilot Franz Stigler had the opportunity to shoot down the crippled bomber, but did not. […]