July is a special month for me. No, it’s not my birth month, but it does hold that honor for my wife and son. So, in my monthly goal of recording a previously-unheard-of tune, I present to you a song I wrote for my wife and presented to her on her birthday a couple years […]
Read more "Song: Wanderings & Windings"I’ve always been a sucker for epic, stoic speeches. That’s part of the reason I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings movies. I recently read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara and it contained several great speeches. The book focuses on the battle of Gettysburg that was fought during the American Civil War in 1863. […]
Read more "A Reason to Love America in ‘The Killer Angels’"As June comes to a close, we are officially underway in summertime raptures. To celebrate, here is the song for the month. I originally considered a tune titled “I Wish It Would Rain”, but given all the storms we’ve had so far this year (at least in my area) that didn’t seem appropriate. So instead, […]
Read more "Song: Purple Clouds"A common trope in Western fiction is the tale of the Easterner coming West and passing through a crucible to grow into a better person. That plot point is the crux of Zane Grey’s The Hash Knife Outfit. In a previous book (which I haven’t read), young Jim comes West to live with his Uncle who […]
Read more "Growing Through Trials with ‘The Hash Knife Outfit’"Happy Father’s Day weekend, everyone! I probably should’ve saved the previous post for this week, but ah well. You’re probably busy anyway, so why not read a semi-short story? This is the climactic adventure under the College-Time Mysteries banner, meaning there won’t be any new stories like this one for a while. But never fear! […]
Read more "Story: Can You Pass the Final Exam?"This is another post in an on-going series that examines the different challenges that come with parenting. To read the previous entry, click here. There are a number of select parenting issues that can quickly bring a firestorm down on someone’s unsuspecting head. Vaccines is the big one in the news right now. But another, […]
Read more "Parental Perspective: Discipline Decisions"Today’s generation is trying hard to make sense of our cultural past. Ideals and actions taken for granted 100 years ago are re-examined in modern times from a different–often negative–perspective. We want to point out the moral failings of previous generations and note all the horrible instances of our collective past. Why is this such […]
Read more "Coming to Grips with Colonialism in ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’"