Teacher and Author
** Article published in World War I Illustrated, Spring 2021, No. 14: 4-10.** Edward Vernon Rickenbacker ensured his place in history with actions taken during a surprisingly brief stretch, from September 25 to November 11, 1918. True, the fourteen preceding years … Continued
Sometime around age fifty I felt the world beginning to pass me by. Technology was the catalyst. Facebook. Twitter. I wanted no part of them. The same, later, for Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. I would catch my daughter or her … Continued
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
** 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
The Many Lives of Eddie Rickenbacker is coming out in two months. Just last month I completed and approved the final changes to the manuscript. Near the end of the process I panicked about this sentence: “[Rickenbacker] visited the island … Continued
“I have always had an insatiable desire to learn,” Eddie Rickenbacker told his hometown newspaper in 1955 when he was at the peak of his power as president of Eastern Air Lines. He wasn’t bragging. Eddie sought knowledge with an … Continued
Before and after. Before, he was a gadfly, goading leaders to hasten the age of aviation. After, he was a Jeremiah, warning against complacency, denouncing featherbedding. In between, there was a twenty-three-day ordeal on the Pacific. Because he survived, he … Continued
I implied–well, stated outright–that Rickenbacker was an indulgent father. That’s not quite right, of course. Human behavior is always more complicated than a single word can capture. That he could seem indulgent from a few lines of his letters is … Continued
Forget the one percent, says David Brooks. It’s all about the top ten–or perhaps twenty–percent. My family falls at the cusp of this upper income quintile, yet family wealth (see Thomas Picketty) has loomed even larger in our household’s well-being. … Continued
The Chicago Tribune declared him “a speed-mad, matrimony insulated-bachelor.” He “has but one love,” it said, “and that the thoroughbred of steel with which he pursues prize money.” Whenever he was asked if he had a girl, Eddie would insist, … Continued