Posts By: occh4@comcast.net

It cost five dollars. It was five feet across and a foot deep. It was plastic and blue. I bought it last year for our four little granddaughters to play in at our house at the Jersey shore. Last Fourth of July our two sons, their wives and their daughters were all here together for

It’s been just over 31 years since the worst day in Philadelphia’s history. It was the most difficult and frightening day for one local television news operation that stood up to the challenge, and upheld the highest standards of journalism under tremendous pressure. If you are old enough, and from Philadelphia, you probably know about MOVE.

Rory, Jordan, and Jason. They may not be known just by their first names yet like Arnie, Jack, and Tiger. But Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Jason Day are more than just the three best golfers in the world. They’re the refreshing, youthful face of sports. Three exceptionally gifted athletes from around the world we can root

It’s unofficially the start of summer, and we feel frustrated, helpless and angry. The only happy person seems to be the laughing  woman in the Chewbacca mask who became the latest internet sensation and even got to ride to work with James Corden. A recent poll of voters by AP and the NORC Center for Public

It marks the beginning and the end at the same time. It’s your coming out party into the adult world. It’s the end of your life in the cocoon of childhood, your teenage years, and those college years where you had the last chance to be carefree, and yes, stupid. You could put that college

It has fewer than 80 pages. It’s a book every writer, reporter, and anyone interested in writing just about anything should have. “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk and E.B. White is a simple guide to beautiful writing. It was originally written, and privately published in 1919, by Cornell University professor William Strunk  who used it

We all have the dates of days that are important to us. Birthdays, anniversaries, deaths. As someone interested in history, and its impact on the present and future, I’m probably a little too obsessed with historical dates. But they give me a guidepost to events and help me understand the flow of history. It makes

America used to be the place where people came to be included in the greatest country in the world. Where if you worked hard, you would be absorbed into the great melting pot. You could find success and happiness. Now, we know history tells us we weren’t so inclusive all the time. We can start with

Presidential elections can change history and the direction of the country for years.  We are in the middle of one of the most contentious and divisive campaigns in our history. But history also tells us about another presidential election that most people don’t know about. It changed the country. It changed the lives of millions for generations. In 1876,

It’s a city that sings. It sings about love, loss, hope, and even drinking. It even seems to sing about its history. Sitting on the banks of the Cumberland River, my wife and I spent a weekend in one of America’s great cities. Nashville will make you tap your feet, enjoy rich southern food, discover