Everyone knows there was a time, not so very long ago, when WASPs – white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestants – ran everything. Older Jewish people remember when they were not welcome in certain clubs or communities, and a generation or two prior to that, the same was true of Catholics, especially Irish and Italian Catholics.  Read More 

I’m not sure if I told you, dear reader, that Hubby’s goal during his recovery from heart surgery was to go on the paid-for, no-refund cruise that we had arranged for our 50th anniversary. We got married on February 8, 1966 -- and yes, I was a child bride. The ground was covered with snow for our tiny little wedding in suburban Washington. The Army had transferred Hubby there from Massachusetts, and I dropped out of graduate school at Brandeis University to go with him.  Read More 

Some of the guys in the presidential parade have “suspended” their march. I absolutely abhor that word usage, with its implication that they are merely pausing to regroup and may return to the trail. Ben Carson gets little credit from me, but at least he did use the verb correctly when he suspended his campaign because some of his Iowa workers had a serious car accident. He planned to return and did – but meanwhile, many people assumed that he intended the current lingo and thought he had quit. Not that I mind, but his campaign did lose some of that also overused word, “momentum.”  Read More 

You may remember that I wrote a couple of months ago on the origins of Tampa’s street names. John Jackson was the federally employed surveyor who first put Tampa on the map in 1847, and he named most of its streets for Democratic presidents or Democratic nominees for president. There are a few exceptions, and the two street names that I could not definitely explain were Marion and Whiting.  Read More