Tag Archives: History

When America Became Great

When the Make America Great Again movement first began, I paid little attention because did not view it in a historical context. Lately have begun to do so. What I came to realize is that most America First and MAGA supporters are far too young to know the time when America became really great the first time.

MAGA is a child of The Greatest Generation. Tom Brokaw wrote about it in his 1988 book by the same name. This was my parents’ generation, and I know that generation well. Only if you grew up among these folks do you understand how great those born between 1901 and 1927 really were.

President Donald Trump grew up during that time, and I believe this is what he may recall when he says “Make America Great Again”.

Read more: When America Became Great

America had many great moments in the past 250 years. Many were dominated by great individuals or organizations, but in my view there were only two times when America was collectively Great. The first, of course, was 1776 and the following two decades. At the time of the revolution there were indeed British loyalists opposing the revolution, but the number of people seeking independence grew with the leadership of George Washington until it became dominant. The subsequent creation of our Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as other First Principals, by the men whose names we all should know, was indeed a time of great thought and wisdom.

The second period of greatness evolved from the Depression when, depending on whose account you read, America might have disappeared. Let’s take a look at that time.

Depression Unemployed at the Al Capone Soup Kitchen

The Depression followed the Roaring 20s decade of celebration following World War I, a time dominated by wild times, speculative investing and uneven distribution of wealth. Then the crash of 1929 brought a ~50% decline in GDP and at the highest point, 25% unemployment. Children like my father quit school to get a job, and the homeless camped in “Hoovervilles”.

Then came WWII.

During the lead-up to US entry, American sentiment was greatly divided. There were many who remembered and participated in recently ended war to end all wars. Isolationist feelings ran high. There were some, including Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford, who were even National Socialist admirers.

During those two years, Churchill tried relentlessly to convince Roosevelt and the U.S. to enter the war, yet Americans and congress were strongly opposed to fighting another European war.

As an alternative, America had been supplying the Allies with huge quantities of material and money in 1940-41, estimated at $49.1B – $1.1 T today, as lend-lease and outright gifts, and that was considered “enough.”

The Nazis had stormed across France, forcing the Dunkirk evacuation, and were poised at the English Channel. The “blitz”, an eight-month bombardment of England, was underway, until the RAF finally repelled it. This was the genesis of the Churchill statement, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

There was no peacemaker or identified pathway to peace in Europe.

Then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Congress, as well as every American, including the isolationists were instantly angry and war was declared on Germany and Japan.

Because of the strong isolationist sentiment in America, we can only speculate what would have happened to Europe had the Japanese not attacked on December 11.

Camouflage town on roof of Boeing Plant 2
6,981 B-17s were produced here

But most importantly, the people of America united in a way they had not since the Revolution, nor anytime since. Young kids like my dad rushed to enlist. Women truly “manned” the factories. The Great Depression finally ended.

The fledgling Greatest Generation created the greatest war machine the world has ever known.

But enough background. Here is the great part.

Dad & crashed ME-262

When the war ended and those kids came home – those that lived through it. They put their lives back together, built their homes, raised families, started businesses, went to school and implemented dreams. These dreams had taken root in foxholes, or the bitter cold behind a B-17 waist gun at thirty-thousand feet, or in the ocean spray standing watch on the deck of a destroyer.

These kids had defeated the German juggernaut! They believed they could do anything! And over the next twenty years they did.

Between 1948 and 1968 those war dreams created baby boomers, computers, automatic transmissions, PhD degrees, the world’s tallest buildings, a roaring economy, the Mustang and Camaro, venture capital, LEDs, supersonic flight, television, lasers, and trips to the moon.

The economy boomed, and the US rebuilt Europe and Japan, both physically and economically at a cost of $15.5B ($212B today), and we still subsidize their economies to this day.

America always with a welcome to the tired and poor of the world willing to work hard for a better life for their families, accepted both friends and former enemies into their ranks.

The Greatest Generation, now fully mature, built the most prosperous and productive country the world has ever known.

I was a child of that generation, and am grateful I could see it happen – and even participate in bits of it.

So when @realDonaldTrump talks about Making America Great Again, I think I know what he really means. I doubt he is thinking of the 80s, certainly not the 70s, or the Obama years, or some other bit of history. He is thinking of a time not many know.

When the Greatest Generation built the Great American Future, and brought much of the world along for the ride.

I am conservative. Not so by choice or argument, but by personal observation and experience. I have seen what hard work, commitment, self-reliance and common sense can produce. I cannot abide those with self-absorbed lives, minimal experience, an aversion to work, trained in Marxist /socialist universities, who ignore the efforts of their forebears.

Not only soldiers like my dad who defeated real Nazis and became a cabinet maker, but those down the road who came home and started a mechanics shop or a construction business or a bank, or Dr. Nick Holonyak who invented the LED, and helped me make one in his lab. These Great Ones fed and housed their baby boomer family for a lifetime.

Now, for the first time since World War II, after six decades of U.S. stagnation, the people of America have the opportunity to recreate part or all of that past greatness. A majority of Americans are now of one mind – we want to be great again.

I truly cannot understand why – other than ignorance – the remainder of our country would not choose to experience the pride and prosperity I did in the 50s and 60s.

True ignorance can be corrected and forgiven, but unwillingness to remember and learn results in stupidity that cannot.

So I say to radical left politicians, many old enough to remember, the news creators, producers and newsreaders at the New York Times, Washington Post @CNN, @MSNBC, @CBSnews, @ABCnews and @NBCnews, and the self-appointed “independent” reporters raging about imagined wrongdoings; Can you stop your rants and foolish criticism and honor this history and what America might be like to have that greatness again?

Sometimes it is good to be burdened by what has been.

Battles at Bull Run

Two battles were fought at Manassas. The first in July, 1861, and the second thirteen months later in August of 1862.

I spent three days at Bull Run, walking the battlefields, researching the events and talking with park rangers and volunteers. Manassas is about the best curated of all the battlefields I visited. The National Park Service is trying to return the battlefields to the way they were when the battle occurred. That means removing trees and structures as well as planting trees and restoring or recreating structures. Manassas staff has made the most progress on these projects.

Continue reading

Geekemeritus 2023 Review

Note: This report was prepared in January, 2024, but due to a “Biden moment” (actually more than one), I thought I had posted it, but alas, had not. I only now discovered that.
So a little late, but here it is.

Well, it is the end of another year, one in which several long-time friends and family have died, and life has changed greatly for others. The reality of life’s brevity is finally coming to rest on me. Although I am not a fan of reliving the past, I think it is important to look at my year and revisit some of the events and savor those that were special in some way.

I covered a lot of ground in 2023 — About 10,000 miles, mostly on America’s byways. Only in the early 2000’s when I was flying between the US and UK have I traveled more. In the past 12 months, I…

  • Lived in the Airstream for 7 months
  • Spent time in 18 states and 4 Canadian provinces
  • Visited 11 Civil War battlefields
  • Camped in a World Heritage Site
  • Followed and explored the old Santa Fe Trail
  • Walked on the ocean floor
  • Climbed the Kill Devil hills
  • Camped on several American Indian reservations
  • Explored the original Manhattan Project site
  • Met many interesting people

Of all the places I visited, here is a severely limited list of stand outs.

Continue reading

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 the race track at the Charleston Jockey Club. Over 200 died during the time and were buried in a mass grave behind the grandstands.

Continue reading

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 prisoners, it was known as “Andersonville.”

Continue reading

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 and Vicksburg. This trip will pass through the Eastern front with stops at battlefields from Savannah to Gettysburg.

A Bit of Background

My maternal grandfather was born in the summer of 1863 in Louisiana. His father, a confederate soldier, was home on a 30-day furlough in 1862, and the following summer, while great-grandfather was fighting at Vicksburg, grandfather was born.

Continue reading

Canyonlands Cowboys and a Bit of Remembering

From the 1890’s to as recently as 1975 Ranchers have run cattle in Canyonlands. This is not pasture grazing – this is high desert. I imagine the cattle only survived. The cattle and the cowboys that tended them were surely tough. The cowboys lived in open air “bunkhouses” under the overhanging rock for months at a time. The black is the smoke deposits from the stove behind the bush. (No, the white box in the center is not a beer cooler!)

Continue reading

Medicine Bow Wyoming

Medicine Bow is a really small town on the Lincoln Highway and the Oregon Trail, It’s history is as a bawdy town filled with bars, gunslingers and prostitutes. So much so that it inspired Owen Wister to write the novel, The Virginian, a story about western life, the Lincoln County Wars and the life of a ranch foreman he called The Virginian he placed it in Medicine Bow. I was able to gather much of Owen’s story from folks at the Medicine Bow museum. About 1884 Owen Wister suffered some sort of mental break resulting in vertigo, blinding headaches and hallucinations. His father had a friend in the “Wyoming Territory” and asked the friend if Owen could spend a summer on his ranch to recover, and all was arranged. Owen was met by the ranch foreman when he arrived on the train in Medicine Bow, and they proceeded north to the ranch somewhere near Jackson, Wyoming, a distance of maybe 200 miles. On the trip the foreman told Owen tales of the territory and the foreman’s adventures.

Continue reading

Ron’s Summer 2022 Begins

Lincoln Highway Marker

I leave in the next few days for another 3-4 month trip into the great west. The only thing I know about this trip so far is I will follow the Lincoln Highway west from Iowa. If you want to follow along, there is an interactive map and a lot of information at the Lincoln Highway Association.

The Lincoln Highway was the first coast-to-coast route that started in Times Square and ended in Lincoln Park, San Francisco, passing through 14 states on the way.

Continue reading