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‘Bad’ Words and Context

When I was a kid at summer camp, maybe when I was 11 or so, I was at a pool with not just my camp but other camps as well. It started to rain so a bunch of us stood in the area right outside the bathroom as we waited.

Some kids from another camp started picking on me. They were making fun of my shoes and whatever else. The counselors weren’t around. I was outnumbered and had nowhere to go, so they continued.  I was cornered.

Then one of their friends joined in – a short kid, probably Chinese – and was having a field day making fun of me with his friends there to back him up.

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Charleston Killings and Awful Writing

I don’t think I’ve ever read a series of opinion articles in my life worse than what stained the pages of The Washington Post after the Charleston shootings. Many of the authors are nothing more than ‘experts’ who majored in Reinforce-My-Biased-Point-Of-View Studies and now make a living either teaching their own nonsense to a new crop of future agitators, or freelance writing trolling.

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Nazi Memorabilia

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I guess I should’ve known that this is stuff that people own, sell and collect. From what I understand, the items in these collections originally come from World War II veterans who brought the stuff over from Europe after the war. Perhaps their families sold it later on. My grandfather certainly brought back some of this stuff, and my family still has it buried away.

I suppose it makes sense to eventually sell it to a collector or salesman who specializes in this stuff.

But from there, who buys it? I can only imagine. Continue reading “Nazi Memorabilia”

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Pvt. William Sumner

I’ve been scanning more family photos recently and came across many of my great uncle, William Sumner, who died in a plane crash during World War II, while on a training mission in Florida.

He was the middle brother, in between my grandfather Harry (died 2007) and my great Uncle Joe. Before the war, William was a pilot for Pan Am. He had a fiance. He died June 17, 1945, while my grandfather was fighting in Europe. My father was named after him.

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