An entirely unexpected Sagamore of the Wabash in 2025
If you've ever wondered what a "sagamore" is, the state of Indiana stands ready with an explanation.
The term “sagamore” was used by the American...
Beers with a Stoic: Sacraments, sanctuaries and homes away from home
Several iterations of this essay were published at the old NA Confidential.
A few years ago one Sunday we went for a stroll and passed...
Diary: 17 years ago, the New Albany Historic Home Tour and the Schwartzel family
It so happens that today was the New Albany Historic Home Tour, which appears to have debuted in 2006. My opinion about this event...
When I’m 64? Now that I’m 64? Can we go back to Europa yet?
If memory serves, we sang snippets of this song by The Beatles in swing choir during high school. I never really imagined it would...
Diary: Looking for a good biography of Eugene V. Debs? This isn’t it
This being an election year — and accordingly, utterly infuriating on a daily basis for the MAGA stupidity it embodies — I thought it...
Diary: “Beer: Why not for breakfast?” (2009 – 2010)
"Mug Shots"
From 2009 - 2011, I wrote a column for Louisville Eccentric Observer (aka LEO Weekly) called "Mug Shots."
If I recall, it was Cary...
The centenary of my father’s birth is today (March 7, 1925 – 2025)
For immediate filing among those factoids that never really occur to you, right up until they do, today is the centenary of my father’s...
Diary: Atlas Shrugged and how Bob Youngblood taught me to appreciate Charles Dickens
At best, I tend to regard Ayn Rand as a sociopath, and yet I’ve read her ball-boiling pot-buster (and seemingly interminable) novel Atlas Shrugged.
Why...
It’s your friends, neighbors and a few blood relatives doing this, not El Presidente
Language matters in mental health. The words we use shape how we see the world–and ourselves. The words we choose and the meanings we...
The book that wasn’t, why it won’t be, and really, that’s all right with...
Today’s bullet point is borrowed from Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers (1930): “Hello, I must be going.”
Regular readers will recall that earlier this year, I...
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From 2009: “Senior editor graces inner pages of Today’s Woman magazine, world gasps”
Egads.
I'd completely forgotten about this photo op and interview, fortunately recorded at NA Confidential (August 5, 2009). Noting that for the moment I cannot...
1970s-era albums for December, 2025
Updated December 10, 2025
Nostalgia regularly afflicts me, and as a result, I endeavor to keep it at arm’s length.
But 2025 has been such a...
John Lennon: Life (and death) is what happens to you while you’re busy making...
(An essay originally published at NA Confidential in 2005, and often repeated. It has been lightly edited.)
On the morning of December 9, 1980, I...
