For me and folks of my generation, Maury Laws helped make Christmas. More on that shortly. It’s just a shame more people don’t know about him. He was part of the Greatest Generation himself, born in North Carolina in 1923. He served in the infantry during WWII, in General George S. Patton’s Third Army. A […]

It’s been over eight months since I’ve posted here? Wow. Lots going on. The Forbes writing is going gangbusters, and I’ve got some things related to that I’ll be announcing soon. The cool factor of the work I get to do there is phenomenal. I announced on LinkedIn recently that I’m launching a manufacturing webcast/podcast, […]

I’ve been a lifelong fan of the movie A Bridge Too Far, which tells the story of Operation Market Garden, an Allied attack on Germany through the Netherlands during the Second World War. I first saw it when I was rather a young lad, and it stood apart from the many triumphant WWII movies as […]

Photograph of Flag Raising on Iwo Jima. Photo by Joe Rosenthal. The US Marines in the photo above are, from left to right: Pfc. Franklin Sousley Pfc. Ira Hayes Sgt. Michael Strank Cpl. Harold Schultz Cpl. Harold Keller Cpl. Harlon Block I’ve memorized their names. I first did that years ago, when I was reading […]

Pretty much everybody is familiar with the Scout Motto up there in my title: “Be prepared.” It’s a pretty simple notion on its face, but a bit more complicated when you really think about it. Be prepared for what? Obviously, you should prepare fully for the specific activity you have planned. But beyond that, what […]

  It was a bitter irony, the contrast in weather for our send-offs for my Mom and my Dad. Mom hated winter, but the week of her funeral almost three years ago was a nearly non-stop blizzard in our Upper Peninsula hometown of Ironwood, Michigan. This week, as we said goodbye to Dad, was one of […]

Rossi… you magnificent bastard, I READ YOUR BOOK! Jim Rossi loves him some movie quotes and paraphrases, so please bear with me as I start my review of his new book with one. (Go to the link, and better yet, watch the whole movie. It’s a great one.) Because his repeated use of movie references […]

The tragic story of the death of Tulane University student Margaret “Meg” Maurer is heartbreaking all by itself. Maurer was killed in an astonishing freak accident on March 5 at a rest stop on I-10 in southern Mississippi. A dual wheel assembly from a passing tractor-trailer broke free, rolled 850 feet, and struck her as […]

One of my favorite Christmas movies – part of the pantheon of shows my wife and I have watched every Christmas almost our whole time together (decades), is The Bishop’s Wife. David Niven plays Bishop Henry Brougham, who’s so consumed by his desire to lead the construction of a huge new cathedral that he neglects […]

Let me start by saying that, no, this is not about anyone in my family or circle of friends needing the services of this amazing cancer hospital for children. Thank God for that. My old college pal Fadi Kiameh posted this story on LinkedIn about actor Danny Thomas and how it came to be that […]