I heard the news last Wednesday morning. My wife and I were doing our annual Christmas trip to Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District, a wonderfully authentic half-mile strip of ethnic grocers and markets and restaurants — Sunseri’s, Wholey’s, Pennsylvania Macaroni, Labad’s,…
In a way, he was the personification of tennis. Year-round tan thanks to the Florida sunshine, a smile that went from sly to joyous, a frown that verged on a fit of temper before turning into the teacher’s patient nod…
Jerry Lee Lewis died on Oct. 28, 2022. He had not charted a hit song for many years. His trademark furious movements were distant memories. His voice had grown scratchier. His visibility had receded to an audience comprised of loyal…
A gonzo journalist who transcended print — an Andrew Breitbart or James O’Keefe, perhaps, before there were Breitbarts and O’Keefes. A Huntress S. Thompson, you might say, but her particular Las Vegas was the political Swamp. A mover and shaker…
There is a reason why William Manchester began his magnificent biography of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar, with the fighting on Missionary Ridge during the Civil War’s Battle of Chattanooga on Nov. 25, 1863. On that date, as Union soldiers…
On Friday, Nov. 11, 2022, the 69th annual National Veterans Day Observance will be celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery. At the Memorial Amphitheater, the secretary of Veterans Affairs will host the observance ceremony following the wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb…
It can be said of the remarkable gumbo of New Orleans that not only is there no other city in America like it, there’s no other city in America even remotely like it. Something of the same can be justly…
The Dutch missionary Andrew “Anne” van der Bijl passed away on Sept. 27. Virtually no one knew him by that name. He was known to the world as Brother Andrew, a name chosen to disguise his identity. “God’s Smuggler,” another…
I first met Aram Bakshian in the fall of 1961. We were both Washingtonians. He was a senior at Woodward Prep, a Washington day school about one block west of the White House. I was a senior at a simply…
