Proud Parents

My 4th grade daughter was just chosen to be on her school's Math Field Day Team.  AWESOME!

Thunder in the Mountains

Over the summer I read Thunder In the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21.  It is about the largest armed insurrection in US history.  About ten thousand miners rode, drove and marched from Charleston, West Virginia to Blair Mountain.  There they had an armed stand-off, with occasional gunfire, with about five thousand men made up mostly of deputized citizens and some State Police along a 10 mile line.  This went on for 3 days until the Governor convinced the President to send the military.  The miners disarmed and surrendered without a fight, because their fight was not against the US Government, it was against the mine operators.  

I grew up 10 or 15 miles from where this happened and I did not hear anything about it until maybe 10 years ago.  The book is very readable.  A lot of it is in short snippets of news stories.  It was very interesting to read things I did not know about the town I lived in and about a couple of people I knew.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes history, and specifically West Virginia History.

Write it When I'm Gone

I just got finished reading the book about President Ford.  It is the result of interviews given between 1974 and 2006.  It was refreshing to read about a genuinely good politician.  Part of the book talked about how civility in politics turned into the hyperpartisanship we see today.  While there was nothing quite earthshaking about any of the revelations, it was interesting to read about the Ford/Clinton phone conversation just before Clinton's impeachment trial.  I always felt Ford was underrated as President, and this book, at least for me, proves it.

I recommend it.  Pick up a copy at Amazon today!