Today is Father’s Day, a day to celebrate all the dads out there. Happy Father’s Day to my son, Matt Manos, who is a super father. Just ask his children. I think of my father every day but on this day, there is a particular vacancy, because Dad isn’t here and I can’t hear him sing those […]
Jun 14, 2016
Keep Her Flying High
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“You’re a grand old flag,” wrote George Cohan. I agree. Grand and beautiful and representative of freedom. Let’s stop a moment on this Flag Day to think about what our national banner means. To me, the Star Spangled Banner represents my Irish ancestors who left their own beautiful homeland and a heritage of centuries past, to […]
May 30, 2016
A Tight Grip on Freedom
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I hate war. I hate the thought of it: the separation from loved ones, the pain and death and cruelty and barbarism. What is at the heart of war? Why can we not live, each in his own country, peacefully? “War is hell,” said General Sherman. He should know. He certainly inflicted a lot of it on the […]
May 29, 2016
In Flanders Fields
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Many years ago, I toured the battle site of the Battle of Vicksburg. Green, grassy knolls covered embankments from which cannons blazed death to opposing forces, a hundred years before. Once, the smoke of guns and the shouts and screams of dying and wounded men filled this battlefield. Now, all was quiet and birds sang. […]
May 16, 2016
With One Foot in the Past
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Decoration Day dawned as lovely and serene as only a May day in Oklahoma can. Goshen Cemetery basked beneath an early morning sun. Droplets of dew sparkled like emeralds and rubies on freshly cut grass. Birds sang in ancient cedars, undisturbed by groups of people moving quietly over the cemetery with their bouquets of flowers. […]
May 10, 2016
What Were Her Dreams Made Of?
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Her name was Lydia and I can imagine family and friends called her “Lyddie.” She was my grandmother’s grandmother. Born in 1823, she was a widow who lived by herself on her farm in Georgia. Recently, I read copies of letters she wrote to her daughter, Tep, and to her granddaughter, Edna. One letter is dated 1890. Dear […]
