Elephants Are Big In Thailand And Nepal; 2
Thailand is as much a Buddhist country as Tibet but, I thought, less obviously so. There were a great many temples and shrines but we tourists saw no large monastery colleges like those in Tibet....
View ArticleElephants are Big In Thailand And Nepal; 3
Like Thailand, Nepal is an intensely religious country but Hinduism rather than Buddhism, predominates. It came from India where its tenets had taken root. Asoka the Great introduced Buddhism not...
View ArticleElephants Are Big In Thailand And Nepal; 4
Royal Chitwan National Park in the Terai of Nepal is a fine example of a nature preserve. The Terai where it is located, has much swampland and is a haven for migrating birds. Tigers, leopards, and...
View ArticleElephants Are Big In Thailand And Nepal; 5
The mighty elephant with its amazing strength plays an important role in southeast Asia. Domesticated in Thailand and Nepal it is used as a pack animal, hauling and carrying. It has become a tourist...
View ArticleTahiti, Anyone?
It was W. Somerset Maugham's short story, "The Fall of Edward Barnard" that made me think of Tahiti as the most romantic place in the world. I was twenty years old and tremendously impressible....
View ArticleI Won't Be Invited To a Tea Party
I am resigned to the fact that since I am an Obama loyalist, the tea baggers will turn up their collective noses at me. If I managed to sneak into one of their parties, I'd get no sugar in my tea and...
View ArticleMcCarthy Deja Vu
It seems like the McCarthy era all over again. About fifty[ five years ago Communism was spreading rapidly, threatening to engulf the entire United States. Cells were everywhere and they were full of...
View ArticleWelcome To Wonderland, U.S.A.
Alice fell down a rabbit hole and found herself in a strange country full of curious things. As she wandered through it, she found a small cake which, if she nibbled one side, made her grow tall...
View ArticleGetting Along In Years
My new credit card has lately arrived and I'm still reeling. It expires in the year 2013. If you, like me, had been born in 1913, wouldn't it set you back on your heels a bit and leave you slightly...
View ArticleA Long Way From Tipperary
In 1880 when twenty year old Annie Louise Smithwick left her home in County Tipperary, she packed her dowry in the false bottom of her trunk into which she also packed two tennis racquets and the...
View ArticleWhy You Should Read WAR AND PEACE
One of the few advantages of being a very old person is that I have plenty of that precious commodity, Time on my hands. I have used some of it lately to re-read Tolstoy's splendid WAR AND PEACE...
View ArticleThe Aging Process
Grow old along with me The best is yet to be.sang poet Robert Browning. He must have been dreaming. Don't let me discourage you but being old is not that much fun. It...
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness: Campaigns I've Known, Part I
Ninety years ago when Warren G. Harding was President, I began to take a dim interest in national politics. I heard the grownups talking about graft and corruption--words which meant nothing to a...
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness; Campaigns I've Known, Part II
When in January of 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office as the U.S.A.'s thirty fourth president, the country was in a condition of chaos and utter confusion. He himself had almost been...
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness Part III
If an earthquake of incredible magnitude, followed by an equally gigantic tsunami had struck the United States on December seventh of 1941, the effect could not have been more shattering. The entire...
View ArticleQuadrenniel Madness Part IV
The brutal war had ended violently but it had ended. POWs and service personnel were coming home from overseas. A wave of euphoria pervaded the nation. All was right with the world. Truman's...
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness Part V
As the time for the 1952 election approached, the writing was on the wall. Some of us die-hards were with Truman who, in the unsteady post-war climate, had really done a respectable job. I admired...
View ArticleThank you to An Unknown Benefactor
There is a phrase I have long wanted to use because it has a grand and careless sound as if I were someone of vast importance to whom a lackey has brought a piece of information. Here goes:
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness; Elections I Have Known; Part VI
As I look back to almost fifty years ago, it seems to me that the period between the 1952 and 1956 election campaigns marked the end of an era--what could be called the Norman Rockwell era....
View ArticleQuadrennial Madness; Elections I have Known: Part VII
I was listening to the car radio when I heard the news. John Kennedy was dead--shot by an assassin as he rode through the streets of Dallas. Almost fifty years have passed since that November...
View Article
