Will and Eddie
Happy Will Rogers Day! The boy who would grow up to become the beloved Cowboy Philosopher was born on this day, November 4, 1879. That year it was Election Day. In 2020, it is merely Aftermath Day. Rogers’s death day, … Continued
Fake Views
Elizebeth Smith, like so many bright, talented women of her era, understood the limitations before her. Her Quaker upbringing nurtured natural intellectual curiosity and independence of mind. But the unyielding horizon around her family’s Indiana farm threatened to swallow her. … Continued
The Hazards of Cryptology
David Kahn called it the Yardley Symptom, the compulsion of the cryptologist to chip away at the puzzle throughout his waking moments. He turns the letters over in his mind even as he fries his morning egg, scrubs his evening … Continued
Black Sheep of the Family
** The first chapter from the newly released book, The Many Lives of Eddie Rickenbacker ** When he was about twelve years old, Eddie Rickenbacker tried to “fly” a bike off a barn roof. Not so far away, the Wright Brothers … Continued
“So Many Lives, So Few Pages: Deciding what to include and what to leave out when telling a life story”
Video Conferencing Presentation on my process writing “The Many Lives of Eddie Rickenbacker.Thursday, October 8, 7:00-7:45 pmZoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/85376796720 Passcode: MLER451
Of Biography and Heroes
I wrote a tenth grade English research paper on Douglas MacArthur. For whatever reason–most likely the limitations of my sources (source!) or the limitations of my reading of same–I focused primarily on his actions in Korea. I remember writing about … Continued