…tho’ you are allowed to push either of your antagonists aside, yet it is considered not only as foul play, but as very ungenteel also, to strive either to throw another down, or to trip up his heels. Such proceedings always produce ill-will, quarrelling, and sometimes fighting: but every young gentleman will wish to make his companions as happy as himself, since, without mutual harmony, the finest sport in the world will be rendered dull, insipid, and disgustful.

"The previous trainer there tried to tell me everything and that he knew everything about me. It's just not the case. I know myself. I know how to get through a 162-game season. The trainer don't know how to do that and the trainers here (in Philadelphia) have been phenomenal. They understand that I am going to be successful because I know how to be successful. I still did things my way when I was there in Boston. I just had someone chirping in my ear the whole time."

"I don't feel bad. No. Cinco is gutless man. I don't feel bad for people."

"I am confident in my ability and ain't nobody going to tell me what to do. Nobody tells Cinco what to do."

"That starting staff is some professional pitchers man. I don't care who you are in the big leagues. You are going to go through rough patches, especially in that division, but the thing is that personally I would want those guys to go to war with to go through those rough patches cause they know how to get out of it. There is no doubt about that."

Root Cellars have been used since the 18th century to store turnips, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, potatoes, and other crops through the cold winter months. These crops were used for human consumption but more importantly to feed dairy cows, beef cattle, and sheep. The vegetables provided critical vitamins and other nutrition necessary to keep up milk production, fatten cattle, and improve the live birth rate of sheep in the early spring. By the mid-1800’s, root cellars became a means to store crops destined for the markets until mid-winter or later when much higher prices could be commanded. Root cellars became largely obsolete with the introduction of modern refrigeration and switch to feeding livestock with corn and other grains along with silage stored in silos.

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Honey got a pair of brogues last year.  When he showed me his purchase, I must admit I squealed.  I have a thing for brogues.  I got my very first pair in the 6th grade.  I wore them out that year, but I haven’t lost my love for them.   But back to Honey.

So, he got his first pair of brogues last year–they are cognac colored.  He’s been loving ‘em.  Not only that, he’s been secretly (or so I think) liking the fact that his coworkers and countless strangers compliment him on his shoes.

He loved those shoes until we went to London.  You see, it rained in London….though I don’t think that’s unusual.  When it rained, Honey’s brogues would get soaked down to his socks.  And who likes wet socks?  Certainly not Honey who automatically assumed that his brogues were of faulty construction.

Unfortunately, I had to edumacate him in the history of brogues.  The shoes were originally constructed in the late 16th century with Irish and Scottish peat bog workers in mind.  The perforation were made to allow water to drain from the shoes as the wearers trudged through bogs….So it would seem that while brogues have been adopted into mainstream culture the perforations still very much serve their purpose of allowing water to pass through the shoes.  After my little lesson, Honey still didn’t appreciate the fact that his favorite shoes didn’t stand up to the rain.  He’s less of a brogue lover now….but I haven’t lost my love of them.

I don’t think the Brits minded their feet getting wet while wearing brogues though since you couldn’t walk for 10 minutes in London without spying someone wearing a pair.  The same was true in Paris where I took the above picture.  Though I should mention that the first photo is from last month during our trip to Europe.  The last photo was taken last September during Fashion Week.

"Romney's campaign doesn't foresee the 43rd president playing a substantive role in the race. Aides are carefully weighing how much the former president should be involved in the GOP convention _ and for good reason. The Bush fatigue that was a drag on GOP nominee John McCain four years ago, and on the country, still lingers, including among Republicans."

"While Bush's standing has improved since he left office in January 2009, he remains a polarizing political figure."

“The bodies of two Mexican news photographers who specialized in the crime beat were found along with the bodies of a former photojournalist and a fourth individual in a canal in the city of Boca del Río, in Veracruz state, according to news reports.
The dismembered bodies of photographers Gabriel Huge Córdova and Guillermo Luna Varela were found along with the body of Esteban Rodríguez, a former Veracruz news photographer, and Irasema Becerra, who was said to have been Luna's companion, according to news reports. News accounts said Huge and Luna had disappeared on Wednesday.”

The Lady Shore had on board, besides convicts, eighty soldiers of the New South Wales corps, amongst whom were German, French, and condemned criminals, reprieved on condition of serving, during life, at Botany-Bay.

We ware Alarm’d by the firing of Musketts on the deck and to my Great Surpris the Capt falling down the steeridge ladder which woke me out of my Sleep.

Millard was allowed out to work for a shipwright during the day but returned to prison at night.

He was more fortunate than most; in the summer of 1799 he was allowed to sail in the Liberty to America, where he settled in New Jersey, took a wife and raised two children.

The 320-page journal was auctioned after being put up for sale by Millard’s American descendants.

If there was any piratical event crying out for dramatisation in fiction or film it’s this one…

Forty-nine bodies with their heads, hands and feet hacked off were found Sunday dumped on a northern Mexico highway leading to the Texas border in what appeared to be the latest massacre in an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels. (San Francisco Chronicle)

With the warmer weather heading, I’ve started thinking more about my summer whites.  I’ve finally hemmed a pair of white jeans to the right length.  I prefer my pants to be Steve Urkel length. And my favorite white dress I purchased from a little vintage shop in South Africa has been faithfully hand washed waiting for the opportunity to be worn.

Though, I must say that Bostonians have been wearing their whites all winter and spring long.  And when wearing white, my favorite thing is to wear it with a bright color such as this green vintage cape that Arrolyn is wearing.  Black will play down color pairing but white makes  colors all the brighter.

Arrolyn owns a consignment shop in New London, New Hampshire.  If you’re ever by her way, check out her shop, Go Lightly (yup, Go Lightly as in Holly Golightly).

Hope you had a restful weekend!

As the Forward reported in a series of articles and editorials last year, Washington’s letter spent decades on display in the Klutznick Museum at B’nai B’rith International’s flagship headquarters in Washington. In 2002, when financial pressures forced B’nai B’rith to relocate to smaller offices, the majority of its collection, including the letter, was put into storage. Many scholars did not know where the letter was until the Forward revealed it to be housed in an art storage facility in suburban Maryland.

Several institutions, including the NMAJH and the Library of Congress, have tried for years to pry the letter away. But B’nai B’rith claimed that its hands were tied by the letter’s legal owner, the Morris Morgenstern Foundation, which would not allow the letter to be moved.

Gross’s study, grounded as it is in local evidence, has withstood the test of time with few revisions. However, Concord had a partner in rebellion on 19 April. As the oft-repeated phrase “Lexington and Concord” suggests, the two towns have been fused in popular memory, and so the findings of The Minutemen and Their World have generally been taken to apply to Lexington as well.

But Lexington was no Concord. Unlike those in their neighboring town, the citizens of Lexington did not drag their feet on the way to revolution but made the most of every opportunity to assert and defend the hard-won inheritance of their ancestors. Moreover, Lexington was not rent by factions and troubled by the local animosities that so disturbed the peace in Concord. Supported by a community that had longed challenged British authority and fomented rebellion, the militia on Lexington’s common stood in, and for, unity.

Surprisingly long overdue, an analysis of Lexington’s social, demographic, political, religious, and ideological characteristics as against Concord’s sheds light on the communities’ radically different responses to imperial crisis, whereas identifying their commonalities reveals the shared motivations that prompted the inhabitants of both towns, when finally pressed, to take up arms against the forces of their king.

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