Category: History
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Coal For Christmas
[Another year. Another Christmas. I republish this every holiday season with a tweak here and there. This story is true and I am passing it down to new readers and my two children and my grandson. Every story from our own lives or the lives of those we once loved…every story is worth telling. There…
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The Journey’s End 3: Inside Wimborne Minster-The Man In The Wall & The Chained Library
[Wimborne Minster. The Church of St Cuthburga. Wimborne, Dorset. Photo is mine.] The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it. ~~Anon Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. ~~Thomas Gray Elegy…
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The Journey’s End 1: Winchester Cathedral
[In the nave of Winchester Cathedral. A man stands at a mirror, allowing the viewer to study and admire the vaulting of the ceiling without cracking a vertebra in one’s upper neck. Photo is mine.] Winchester Cathedral You’re bringing me down You stood and you watched as My baby left town. ~~New Vaudeville Band It…
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Judge Wyndham’s Oak
[The Celtic Tree of Life. Source: Google search. CelticArtStudio.] Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening earth. ~~Tagore A few days ago, my friend, Tim, asked me if he had ever taken me to see Judge Wyndham’s Oak. I said that I have no recollection of such a visit. He said,…
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Aethelgifu, The Teenage Abbess: A Peak Inside The Walls Of The Shaftesbury Abbey
[Gold Hill, Shafesbury] Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers. It was a chilly day, this fourth day of October. Chilly and windy. Mariam and I had just had a very enjoyable lunch with a former student of mine, Sally, and her husband, Matthew. Sally was in my Geography class when I had the joy…
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The Terminus
[A card, purchased at a small souk in the Marrakech Market. It is my name, Patrick, written in Arabic by a calligrapher. The cost was about $4.00. A small amount for a priceless piece of art. Important to me. Photo is mine.] The end of journey is not a period, but a comma. ~~ Anon…
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Anemonia Keeps Me Awake
Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out. ~~Richter [The Berlew Family Reunion. Orange, PA. September 6, 1926. Photo: Egan Family Archives.] I don’t think it rained that day. There are no clouds in the sky. I should know. I’ve crawled inside this photo more than once over the years. One…
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Dark Night/Dark Happenings
[A British tabloid. Photo: Google Search] I can’t Imagine… ~~ Patrick Egan It was 1980. I was teaching Oceanography and Earth Science at the Ridgefield High School in Connecticut. Monday, Dec. 8, was a normal day of classes. Late that afternoon, Parent/Teacher Conferences were scheduled. I was a new faculty member and somehow I scored…
