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WRITING HISTORY FOR FUTURE READERS

February 4, 2022 by

Writing history, engaging history, helps readers. What doesn’t help readers is writing bad history. But bad history has an appeal, a great appeal. Bad history writing plays to the audience who need their feelings and actions validated in a way they understand. What do they need to understand?

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READING HISTORY BOOKS YIELDS MORE THAN BARGAINED FOR

February 3, 2022 by

Reading history books is about more than validating the opinion you already have. George Washington, first president and father of our country, chopped a cherry tree down and confessed because he would never lie? Honest Abe Lincoln never told a lie? No one questioned their honesty? Reading history books could answer those sort of questions, […]

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FOR TEACHING HISTORY, FIRST LEARN HISTORY

December 29, 2021 by

My first awareness about teaching history came during a senior seminar class on the origins of WWI. I was a night school student finishing off history degree requirements; a ‘take classes at noon’ student, a ‘whatever class fits the right time slot’ student. It was the usual schedule for irresponsible college dropouts who get married, […]

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PARENTAL ADVICE FROM THE HISTORY OF ALL PARENTAL ADVICE

December 21, 2021 by

Parental advice is best served as a hand-me-down plate. That is, tell your kids what your parents told you so they’ll know what to tell their kids. Sound complicated? It’s not. Instead, it is listening, listening and understanding. It goes like this:

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EVIL HISTORY IS TOO PAINFUL FOR STUDENT READING?

July 11, 2021 by

Evil history includes a list of everything you wish you’d never heard of. It’s the story of man’s injustice to his fellow man, and woman, and non-binary person. If you’ve lived long enough, you’ve heard some evil history; add a few more years and you’ve lived some of it, and the aftermath. Everyone has a […]

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HISTORY MATTERS WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING

June 2, 2021 by

History matters more to history majors? We like to think so, but history matters to everyone else, too. It matters with personal history, house history, town history, business history, and the big history between nations. The key to remember is that it always starts small. And it starts with one question: What happened?

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LIFE STORIES: WHEN PERSONAL HISTORY IS NOT ENOUGH

April 10, 2021 by

Life stories come in every form and flavor from hot to cold, bland to sassy, truthful to made up. Tell the same stories long enough to the same people and they start to wonder: “How many times have we heard this stuff?” “Do they know they’ve told the same story over and over?” If you’ve […]

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FAMILY VALUES: HOME HISTORY IN MEMORIES

January 11, 2021 by

The term Family Values gets tossed around often, so often the definition changes. After the events of January 6, I questioned family values in general, American family values in particular. Since we all have different values, different family values seems likely. There were no lock step in my family values growing up and I didn’t […]

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RED BROOM FOR SWEEPING 2020 HISTORY

December 28, 2020 by

When a big red broom makes all the difference: W.C Fields said, “I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was a Sunday.” He’s got the time-bender figured out better than Einstein after 2020. Has your world felt like a Philadelphia Sunday this year, too? If you read blogs for new ideas, here’s […]

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SOFT AMERICA FLUFFS HISTORY AND LIKES IT LIKE THAT

November 4, 2020 by

What turns hard America to soft America? It starts with a poor role model for hard America, when a soft man portrays a tough guy. An aging man can be a comfort when they share the wisdom of experience, when they show up on time and ready to go, when they take their age into […]

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