“Flags of Valor,” a memorial outside the St. Louis Art Museum, September 11, 2021. Photo by John Griswold. When 9-11 happened I was teaching at the University of Illinois. My wife was six weeks pregnant with our first son. We were getting ready for work but stopped to…
Photo by John Griswold Start with small seats on the aircraft, smaller all the time, it seems, and the expectation that flights will be full, and no room in the overhead bins, so your bag goes under the seat in front of you, and your feet get pinned…
The rich are different from you and me, as Fitzgerald said; they have bigger toys. Sometimes the toys draw so much water, and provide such a temptation to the unwashed masses, that they require deep-water berthing at their own islands built offshore.
Photo by John Griswold We have an old bottle of Macallan whisky given to us by my in-laws, who were Scottish immigrants in the 1950s. They told us that a family friend was a foreman at the Macallan distillery, and he gifted them the bottle on the eve…
WWII’s most famous correspondent, a combat nurse, and the need to remember our sacrifice.
She had likely been in more countries and combat zones than WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle and had helped save many lives, maybe even someone in your family. But few remember her from life, the records are mostly lost, and I know of no markers.
Poster at St. Louis Science Center. Photo by John Griswold “Hot damn, mummies!” I heard someone say at the St. Louis Science Center, which is currently hosting the exhibit Mummies of the World. Who is not drawn to gaze on a mummy, even at $19.95 a ticket? Usually…
Screenshot from Bo Burnham’s recent Netflix special, ‘Inside.’ Comedian-musician Bo Burnham has a song in his most recent Netflix special, Inside, that admits he is “problematic.” In making a joke of something true, he either faces it or is trying to get ahead of criticism (or both),…
Trooper Haylie Polistina, from the Illinois State Police Public Information Office, at the Illinois State Fair. Photo by John Griswold The Illinois State Fair was canceled in 2020, for the pandemic, and for years before that I was living elsewhere. As we walked across the Fairgrounds yesterday to…
Artist’s diagram of the interior plan of the Hindenburg, 1936. Wikimedia Commons Humans desire a “home,” distinguished from “a house” or other dwelling by emotional attachment. Like the house, a home might have walls, a toilet, running water, a bed, the means to keep and cook food, some…
Screen capture from the Royalty Exchange website Remember when Michael Jackson bought publishing rights to songs by The Beatles, Springsteen, Elvis, the Stones, and others? He did so, famously, after Paul McCartney, collaborator and once-friend, told him it was a good investment. Then Macca spent 35 years trying…
Photo by John Griswold My friend Larry was complaining that his flight to Paris was several hours longer, now that he lived in Los Angeles instead of Chicago. “That means I have to watch three or four more movies in-flight,” he said. He is an actor. I had just…