Last week, National Public Radio covered the story of the first woman and first African-American sworn in as librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden. Dr. Hayden said one of her first priorities is to digitize the more than 162 million items in the library’s collection. These materials include the Bible Rosa Parks carried in her purse and her handwritten notes…
We all have those milestone birthdays. You know, the ones where the numbers are really round and fat like forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, and so on. These days, quite a few people around me are celebrating the accumulation of decades. My dad recently turned ninety, and I sat down to write a list of some of the things he experienced…
You’re probably expecting a prompt about Thanksgiving, turkeys, food, gratitude, or something else associated with this holiday, but not this time. We’re going way off topic to write about tattoos. Yes, that’s right—tats, ink, those colorful creations we see decorating the likes of grandmothers, Hollywood stars, athletes, and teenagers. Tattoos have been around for thousands of years, but until the…
