The James Whitcomb Riley Home in Greenfield, Indiana
As a child, the poet James Whitcomb Riley liked to watch the westward bound wagons, stagecoaches and carriages traveling on the National Road past his home. He’s still doing it today. The horse-drawn vehicles have been replaced with pickup trucks, SUV’s and cars, but he still sits watching. The Riley who watches now is a…
Read MoreCongratulations, Graduate: Ernest Hemingway, Class of ’17
Ernest Hemingway… What comes to mind when you hear the name? The famous author big-game hunting on the African savannah? The young aspiring writer in a Paris cafe, drinking cafe au lait and rum and writing about Michigan? The war correspondent on the front lines in the Spanish Civil War, or traveling with the U.S.…
Read More“A Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish”: Ernie Pyle on the Normandy Beachhead
Ernie Pyle, born in Dana, Indiana on August 3, 1900, was one of the great American journalists of the twentieth century. He is one of the most famous correspondents of the Second World War, a man who riveted readers with his simple and direct accounts of life in the war zones and his skill at…
Read More“Spring” from Sherwood Anderson’s “Home Town”
Sherwood Anderson published a book called Home Town shortly before departing for Latin America in March of 1941 to write articles for Reader’s Digest about Latin American nations and people. He was also traveling as a kind of unofficial goodwill ambassador for the U.S. State Department as the threat of war intensified for the United States. It…
Read More“Faithful to our God and Our Cause”: Ohio Soldiers Celebrate Passover, 1862
On a spring night in West Virginia, twenty Union soldiers gathered in a log hut. Before them were cooked lamb and chicken, eggs, barrels of cider, strands of some bitter herb and stacks of matzos, the unleavened flatbread of Jewish tradition. These twenty men were Jewish soldiers of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry gathered together…
Read MoreStage Irish: Ernest Ball of Cleveland, Ohio and His “Irish” Songs
It begins with a swelling orchestra that evokes a dramatic landscape suddenly coming into view, like a grand vista beheld from a mountain summit, and then come these words: “Tis a dear old land of leprechauns and wondrous wishing wells and nowhere else on God’s green earth are there such lakes and dells. No wonder…
Read MoreWhen Buddy Toured The Heartland
February 1, 2016. Traffic rumbles past the enormous brick bulk of The Cincinnati Gardens on Seymour Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio. Six bas-relief sculptures in groups of three rise from the exterior brick walls on both sides of the main entrance doors. One is a basketball player, one is a hockey player and one is a…
Read MoreToni Morrison’s “Remember: The Journey to School Integration.”
Not long ago I was in a local library’s children section and I came upon Toni Morrison’s 2004 children’s book Remember: The Journey To School Integration. I wasn’t aware of this book by Toni Morrison. Remember is the story of school integration geared towards younger readers and told through photos and text. In the text…
Read More1916: Some Books From A Century Ago
As the year winds down I thought I’d take a look at some well-known books from a century ago: 1916. This list examines some works by important Midwestern writers, both fiction and nonfiction, and includes works by other authors from both the U.S. and overseas. I’ll start out here with a little background on the…
Read MoreIn Autumn, In Ohio, Long Ago: Walt Whitman’s “Come Up From The Fields Father”
I was leafing through the “Drum-Taps” section of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass a few years ago and reread many of the poems in this section, including “Come Up From The Fields Father.” As had happened many times before, I was moved by the compassion and tenderness that are present throughout this section of Whitman’s…
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