Tag Archives: History

A Revolutionary Moment.

Posted on November 5, 2022 by polloplayer

Perhaps we felt so immersed in how historic a city Boston is that we forgot to actually go in search of the history. We were on the tourist trail, on the art trail, on the retail trail and I, for … Continue reading →

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Crossing that bridge when I come to it.

Posted on August 14, 2021 by polloplayer

Toward the end of 2020, I wrote the date down in my calendar on a whim. August 14. An exercise in hopefulness. Surely we could be back in the city by then, right? In the meantime, I was making no … Continue reading →

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Mask-arade.

Posted on June 20, 2020 by polloplayer

I’m having trouble keeping up. First we were told that masks were of no use in keeping COVID19 at bay; now we have state orders to wear them. Wha? Oh, well, as it turns out the “health experts” lied to … Continue reading →

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2019 Reading Recap: War, Rinse, Repeat.

Posted on February 22, 2020 by polloplayer

Six books that span the centuries; the thread that connects them is history. And war. The Hundred Years War. World War I. World War II. The Vietnam War. The Iraq War. Hell, hellish and more hellish. The fact that most … Continue reading →

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Viszontlátásra to Budapest and the Danube.

Posted on May 4, 2019 by polloplayer

There’s never enough time. It seems we’d barely begun our love affair with Budapest, with its farrago of influences from East and West, combining to make the most fragrant, scrumptious cultural – and culinary – goulash. It began more or … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Reading Recap: Some of the Most Interesting People I Met Last Year.

Posted on January 27, 2018 by polloplayer

I traveled seven centuries to make some new acquaintances in my 2017 reading. A dozen biographies, memoirs and historical portraits illuminated my tiny canon of knowledge of history, art, politics and literature. Some of these books were a bit like … Continue reading →

Posted in Music/Art/Literature/Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

This Day in History: Another Take on Watergate

Posted on June 17, 2017 by polloplayer

If you’re old enough to remember 1972 you may fondly recall the original VW Bugs, bellbottoms, and, on your tinny car radio, the strains of  “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin“. But you probably … Continue reading →

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How to Remember the Alamo.

Posted on October 15, 2016 by polloplayer

It reads almost like a folk tale. In March of 1836, a few hundred men huddled in a roofless fort, fighting to the death in a quixotic battle against two thousand Mexican soldiers commanded by the autocratic and ruthless General … Continue reading →

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Shelf Life: Stranger than Fiction

Posted on January 16, 2016 by polloplayer

I’ll reach for a novel every time. It is mostly thanks to my book clubs, travel and the occasional moment of discipline that I am grudgingly prodded into reading non-fiction. About a third of the books I read in 2015 … Continue reading →

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Five for the Fourth

Posted on July 4, 2015 by polloplayer

Five great books to put the fireworks in your Fourth of July celebration: 1. 1776 by David McCullough So good I’ve read it twice! 1776 is an exciting and thorough survey of that most seminal year in our country’s history. … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Holidays, Music/Art/Literature/Culture | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments