Index

  • Why I Wander America

    When I retired, the last thing I wanted to do was go to an airport, let alone think about getting on an airplane. And for five years, I was successful. Instead, I have spent those years wandering the back roads and small towns of America. Many times I have been driving slowly down a two-lane…

  • IPFS, WEB 3 & Decentralization – Part 2

    NFT’s, Blockchain & Copyright Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFT’s are unique digital asset that is verified and stored on a blockchain network. While cryptocurrencies are interchangeable and can be divided into smaller units, NFTs are one-of-a-kind and cannot be divided, thus non-fungible. They can represent ownership of a specific asset, such as digital art, music, or…

  • The Civil War

    This trip has been for planned two years. It was originally set for 2021, but Covid closed all the national parks and many campgrounds, so I headed west that summer. I had visited the Civil War “Western Front” in 2020 — along the Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi rivers — Forts Donelson and Henry, Shiloh, Corinth…

  • Camp Sumter

    This is not a good place. This is Andersonville. Between February, 1864 and the end of the Civil War Camp Sumter confined Union prisoners of war. Forty-five thousand came here, but only thirty-two thousand left. Thirteen-thousand died of malnutrition, exposure and rampant disease – a 29% death rate. During the fourteen months Camp Sumter held…

  • Fort Sumter on Memorial Day

    Fort Sumter1 was built after the war of 1812 as one of a series of coastal port defenses and named after a Revolutionary war hero, General Thomas Sumter. But it entered history as the site of the first shot of the Civil War. It is built on a constructed island formed of 70,000 tons of…

  • Some Memorial Day Thoughts

    Spending Memorial Day at Fort Sumter where the Civil War began reminded me that the first celebrations of Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day occurred shortly after at the end of the War, and one of the most remarkable was here in Charleston. Late in the war Union prisoners were held on the infield of…