~ Our Take ~

Imagine this: it’s November 1, 1512, and you’re one of the lucky few commoners permitted to enter the Pope’s private place of worship—the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome. You look up. You’re awestruck. That star-studded blue sky is no more. Overhead, a...

Imagine this: You, your wife, and your Hawaiian associate and his wife are dropped off on a coral atoll near the equator in the southwest Pacific—after six weeks aboard a small sailing ship from Honolulu. It’s November 17, 1857. You four are the only non-Gilbertese on...

Everyone has seen the iconic WWII photo of Gen. Douglas MacArthur striding through the water in his khakis, shoes soaking wet, right? Well, roll back the newsreels: This week marks another historical date we can’t forget: Leyte Landing Day, October 20, 1944, when...

What a year! The Coronavirus forges ahead, and the anti-mask/anti-vaccine forces rally in the streets and at local school board meetings. Congressmen glare across the Democratic-Republican chasm like combatants in the Western Front trenches. We teeter on the verge of...

October: We rejoice—our high temperatures in Las Vegas are in the two-digits at last! We’re thankful for the cooler weather, yes, but October also sparks memories of another unforgettable date from our Peace Corps years: October 1, 1978—Independence Day in the tiny...

It’s a milestone birthday week for the Peace Corps: The big Six-Zero! Sixty years since September 22, 1961, when JFK signed the legislation creating the Peace Corps. Sixty years of memorable events: the first 51 Volunteers arrived in Ghana in the fall of 1961; the...

Four U.S. Olympics gymnasts, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman, moved me to tears yesterday as I watched the Senate Judiciary Hearing on former team doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual assaults on team members. I was riveted by their courage and...

Some gifts are too special to be used—or, in this case, to be worn. My commemorative Shanksville t-shirt is one of those. It was a gift from Bud Sigg (the father of my friend Jack), who sent it as a memento of Pennsylvania’s place in the history of the 9-11 attacks....

You know how some dates remain in your mind forever—the place, the time, the “feel” of an incident? Today marks one of those days—not only for all of us as a nation, but for me personally: It’s August 28, 1963, Wednesday, late afternoon: I’m driving Red Mountain Pass...

Photo: Military supplies on Guam awaiting sorting and shipment, 1944. Photo from souvenir booklet in the Garretson family archives. We like to play a mental game we call “Where was I when . . .” Last week the game took us back to August of 1945 when our fathers were...