There wasn’t much glamor associated with stagecoach travel in the Old West. The “roads” were dusty, miserable, and subject to radical changes of elevation. The food was lousy. The weather inside the coach was pretty much the same as the weather outside. In the pre-shock absorber era, sleep was nearly impossible. And there was always the potential drama of an encounter… Read more »
Small talk is a big deal. More than a decade and a half ago, Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the most highly regarded (and typically “buttoned-up”) east coast law firms, was experiencing a culture crisis. Its annual staff turnover was an alarming 30%, and when the journal American Lawyer published its review of mid-level associates, S & C ranked almost dead… Read more »
One hundred years ago, British author and philosopher H.G. Wells was one of the most lavishly optimistic thinkers on the planet. In his 1922 book A Short History of the World, he envisioned the dawning of a golden age. Even though the horrors of World War I had ended only four years earlier, Wells was certain that science would soon… Read more »
If you’re a parent, and your child is seriously ill, nothing else matters. You would move heaven and earth to find the right doctor. You would pay any price for the right medicine. If you could, you would gladly take her place. In the case of a synagogue leader named Jairus, it meant tracking down the controversial teacher from Galilee… Read more »
A few years ago, I experienced the adventure of walking through an authentic European garden maze. The first time I saw an aerial photo of one of those labyrinthine backyard hedges – the playgrounds of the rich and bored during the Enlightenment – I yearned to encounter one first-hand. Opportunity knocked when I visited Hampton Court Palace, one of the historic… Read more »
Malcom in the Middle, a sitcom about a comically dysfunctional family, was a smash hit on Fox for seven seasons (2000-2006). Lois, the overbearing mother (played by Jane Kaczmarek) is married to Hal, the emotionally immature but heart’s-in-the-right-place dad (played by Bryan Cranston, whom few people suspected at the time was on his way to becoming a critically acclaimed star). They… Read more »
On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln stood against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol and presented his Second Inaugural Address. Less than five weeks later, the core goals of his presidency – the surrender of the primary Confederate forces and thus the preservation of the Union – would finally be accomplished. The expectation of those victories buoyed the nation’s capital. If… Read more »
Just because you’re close to somebody doesn’t mean you’re actually close to somebody. The original Siamese twins were a memorable case in point. Chang and Eng (who later took the surname Bunker) were born in 1811 in Siam, or modern-day Thailand. They were conjoined twins who were united at the sternum by a five-inch strip of cartilage. Chang and Eng did everything together. … Read more »
On June 6, 1944 – D-Day – Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, to begin the liberation of Europe from Hitler’s Third Reich. The beaches were not created equal. Pointe du Hoc is an imposing limestone bluff between the Omaha and Utah landing sites. Atop its 100-foot cliffs, the Germans installed guns that were capable of lobbing shells into Allied… Read more »
Mary Sue and I had been married for exactly six days. I wanted to do everything right to let her know that I was a person she could trust for – well, for the rest of her life. It was the last day of our whirlwind honeymoon road trip to Florida. Her childhood best friend would be married the following day in… Read more »
