Over the years, I've found myself dating things according to either when my children were born or what car I owned at the time--or both. For example, I remember the year I began teaching in Pennsylvania because it was just before our first child was born. And I recall the year we moved to new jobs in South Carolina because it was the year our third minivan died and we had to buy the Mazda. I've recently been recalling all the vehicles I've owned since I began driving. The first car I drove...

On July 7, Dillon Summers wrote home to his family for the first time in at least a month. Dillon with his sister Hazel before shipping out overseas "Hellow, Mom & family. "Will drop You a few lines today to let You know I am still well & doing O.K. trusting every one there is in good health & doing fine.... I had a nice hot shower Yesterday. The first one since I've been here." "Here" was Normandy, France, where he had arrived with the other men of the 391st Armored Field Artillery...

Tomorrow we celebrate our nation's 250th birthday. But the passing of the Declaration of Independence was the culmination of a rather lengthy process. It wasn't a rash, hastily done act of impulsive rabblerousers or "influencers." It was the result of years of oppression and wrongs inflicted by the people's own government across the ocean and their deliberative reaction and response to it. There were the numerous instances of "taxation without representation": the Stamp Act (1765), the...