Teacher and Author
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell fact from fiction.” So begins Candace Fleming’s Amelia Lost, in her foreword called “Navigating History.” Fleming wants her reader to know–up front, right from the start–that there was much she unearthed in her research that … 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
He was no Eddie Rickenbacker. He did not grow up poor, was not forced to drop out of school and work on factory floors after his father’s untimely death. He did not need boundless energy and ambition just to escape … Continued
Biographies of Eddie Rickenbacker bear titles and subtitles such as “Enduring Courage,” “An American Hero of the Twentieth Century,” “Rickenbacker’s Luck.” Would these books and these epithets have been written had things happened, not so much differently as, at different … Continued
It’s not just that both are right in this case. Both are right in every case. Even as “hard” a science as physics tells us light is both a particle and a wave. Quantum mechanics tells us electrons can be … Continued
William Rickenbacher, apparently, had a keen sense of history. He told his son, Eddie, future race car driver, World War I flying ace, and Eastern Airlines CEO, “You’re a lucky boy to be born when you were. There are a … Continued
Looking back across the bulk of the twentieth century, Eddie Rickenbacker said he got the idea for his umbrella bike after (or perhaps during) the barnstorming tour of Roy Knabenshue in his dirigible. “Everyone turned out to watch,” the seventy-five-year-old … Continued
Change was long overdue. The stock market had crashed in Hoover’s first year as president. Prospects looked bad for the next two years before turning truly dire in 1931. Democrats, who hadn’t held power since the war, knew their time … Continued
Outgrowing schoolbook understandings is a lifelong endeavor. We were all taught the injustice of the Trail of Tears, but there is more to the story. How many of us grow up to examine its complexities? With the arrival of John … Continued
On D-Day, September 26, 1918, Allied artillery shelled enemy trenches, beginning at Zero Hour, 4:00 am. Infantry units went “over the top” an hour and a half later, crossed No Man’s Land and attempted to take those same trenches. Zero … Continued