The Blaisdell Blog

On October 24, 1921, Sgt. Edward F. Younger, approached four identical caskets laid in the city hall of Chalons-sur-Marne in France.   Sgt. Younger had, himself, been badly wounded in combat, been highly decorated for valor and received the Distinguished Service Medal.   But he was alive, and on this day he had an awesome task.   The four caskets before him had each been exhumed, quite at random, on Memorial day, 1921, from four World War I American cemeteries in France.   Each contained the remains of a soldier who had been unrecognizable and unknown at the time of his burial.   All anyone will ever know about these four bodies is that they were American soldiers and had fallen in “The War to End all Wars.”   Younger’s task was both simple and agonizing.   He would select one of these caskets for internment in the newly created Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.   Sgt. Younger moved forward (at what impulse we will never know) and placed a spray of wh...

On Memorial Day the History channel will begin a three-day series on Ulysses Grant.   I plan to watch and hope the drama lives up to the man.   This summer I will start reading my 23 rd Presidential biography.   [John Quincy Adams; I read them in no particular order.] I plan on reading a biography of every President before I die so—well—from my mouth to God’s ear on that one.               I have read American Ulysses: A Biography of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White.   White also wrote the biography I read of Abraham Lincoln ( A. Lincoln: a Biography ).   I recommend both of his books.   Lincoln and Grant, contemporaries, and co-admirers, are also interesting in their differences—and in how history has treated them.   I have tremendous respect for both of theses Presidents.               Grant lives among the circle of tho...

This is a column about King George III who was King of England before, during and after the American Revolution.   This is not a column about any other human being.               The paintings of King George III show a man with puckered, rubbery lips, a supercilious expression, and a pretentious white wig.   Most people with even a passing understanding of American history know that King George was mad as a hatter.               Excepting his inability to see the world in a consistently and reliably accurate frame of mind, there are no excuses for George not being able to rule his nation.   He was, after all, born to the purple.   George (like Trump, whom this blog is not about) was of largely German extraction.   Unlike Trump, he was well educated. He also liked science and became an avid gardener.   [The only thing Trump seems to...

A very popular ice cream shop on Cap Cod tried to re-open this weekend using pre-ordering, social distancing, curbside service and a can-do attitude.   It had to close.     A second, discreet, re-opening was done without one of their staff.   Why?   Because their overwhelmingly white, affluent and—apparently—intellectually challenged clientele were so verbally abusive to the teen-age girls trying to serve them, that one of them quit.   Evidently, she did not like being called the C-word because her customer couldn’t get his ice cream in jig time.   Every worker at that ice cream parlor had been berated for the slower service required by the modified COVID rules.   The “f” word, was thrown at them routinely.   The owner described the crowd as acting like uncaged animals.   I think he was being generous.                        ...