Piero Scaruffi’s excellent U.S. historical timeline 1492 to 1768 re-published here.

TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
1492: the Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo sails west on behalf of Spain looking for a way to reach Asia, and instead lands in a new continent
1497: the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci sails to the new continent on behalf of Spain
1507: German cartographer Martin Waldseemller’s “Cosmographiae Introductio” [...]

Warning! Pitbull fighting is sick, sad, and pathetic, watch this graphic slideshow, “Michael Vick, American Loser.”

The Invitation, a poem by Canadian poet, Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of [...]

If- by Rudyard Kipling

If -
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give [...]

Baby enjoys his first ride on the swing set!

Cesar Huesca playing Van Halen’s Eruption…

Poem of a dead soldier: “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” -Homer, translated: “It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country.”

“Dulce Et Decorum Est” is a poem by Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died a soldier in action in 1918.

Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to [...]

Scroll down through these fine poems and leave your own favorite in the reply box, Thanks!

My sixth grade English teacher, Mr. Bobino, made us memorize a different poem or important historical piece (preamble to the constitution, the Gettysburg address, etc) every month. Now with a son of my own, I have been reminded of how much I enjoyed learning a new poem each month and how much I [...]

A poem to help you learn proper pronunciation through rhyme.

Multi-national personnel at NATO headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language … until they tried to pronounce it. To help [...]

Some help buying local produce in West Tennessee…

I’ve been trying to educate myself on how one might feed himself with local meat and produce in west TN. Here is a chart of growing dates for different veggies and a list of farmer’s markets in West TN, both of which I found at picktnproducts.org:
West Tennessee Farmer’s Markets:
CROCKETT COUNTY
Crockett Farmers Market at Maury [...]