Delaware from Freeways to E-ways (Book) - 5/21/2025 8:39:51 AM
My husband and I recently drove from Connecticut to Florida, and I was very interested in reading this book. I love stopping and visiting places. I love seeing new things. What is great about this book is that there is history. Not only do you get to see the landmarks, but you also learn the history behind them. The author even takes it a step further and the reader learns the impact on society. Delaware is a first state, and after reading this book, I can see why. I am giving this book a 5/5. I was given a copy, all opinions are my own.
Delaware from Railways to Freeways (Book) - 10/19/2023 9:49:20 AM
Thoroughly enjoyed the second history of Delaware book, the first being "Delaware Before The Railroads." Mr. Tabler is a wonderful historian and obviously knows Delaware and it's history well. Recomnend both books highly.
Delaware Before the Railroads (Book) - 3/19/2023 7:09:10 AM
What a wonderful book. Entertaining and educational. The stories and pictures about the history of Delaware are outstanding. My husband is from Sussex County DE and he also enjoyed the book immensely.
Delaware Before the Railroads (Book) - 2/9/2023 8:24:45 PM
Ever wonder what the Capital Operation was? Or what are sea spiders or English keys, and what they were used for? Wanted to learn about when Delaware became the first state in the Union at a local tavern? Interested in finding out more about the Mason Dixon line and the meaning of the letters M & P on the markers or discover what a beehive oven was? Wonder why the Sargeant at Arms would exit the courthouse at the end of a trial carrying a large spear with either a white or red tip? Want to discover who opposed and refused to sign The Declaration of Independence, but then was one of the delegates to frame the U.S. Constitution?
Delaware before the Railroads answers all these questions and much more. This is a small book that is loaded with informative, educational, and illuminating reading which includes interesting tidbits of history. Not written for just the historian but for anyone interested in Delaware or a piece of American history. From the first log cabins to one of the oldest churches in America, one church called the “cradle of Methodism,” to the Independent Black Church Movement and numerous other churches throughout (ministers were so scarce in some congregational area’s that religious services were held only once a month).
There are several wonderful pictures of some of these remarkable church buildings. The photo gallery included in Delaware before the Railroads displays breathtaking photography including a stunning photograph of the New Castle Courthouse as seen through a raindrop, a picture I will never forget, amazing! One point on formatting is that for the ease of the reader, I would have preferred that the comment section applicable to the photographs would have been on the same page as the picture and not at the end of the book.
Dave Tabler has written a tremendously knowledgeable book that every grade school child residing in Delaware, or studying American History, should have the opportunity to read. By the way, I was pleased, but surprised, that there was discussion about free public schools as early as the 1700’s. Tabler provides a strong, rich political history of America and our first state. And along the way he entertains the reader with informational historic tidbits.
Check it out for the photography which stands alone or check it out for the enlightening descriptive acquired facts about the history of our first state, which we all should be interested in.
She Denied to the Last. (Short Story) - 4/18/2026 2:33:19 PM
A bit repetitious. But I understand that a single paragraph is not a lot of information to go by.
Quite frankly, I was shocked that England in the 1700s still had a barbaric punishment of burning at the stake. Especially since Catherine, by all evidence a murderer, was not made of the devil that got the whole witch burning activity going in Europe in the middle ages. Fire must've been a very terrible way to die where death would be wished for more quickly.
The headlines show a woman killing her husband recently. I don't doubt that it occurred many times throughout history. Probably most succeeded without punishment.
Ron
My First Audience (Short Story) - 12/14/2025 9:40:42 AM
That was quite an accomplishment at eight. My twin brother and I, at seven, had failed in our radio debut playing piano very badly. I was afraid of audiences up until I started taking speech courses in college where I finally overcame that immense shyness that kept me from the limelight.
I think it was in the eighth grade where our English teacher asked us to write a short story. My twin brother, Roger wrote mind-boggling science fiction story about brain injury. I tried to write about an adventure canoeing a roaring river but I didn't like the story because it was rather doll and never wrote another story until 60 years later.
Ron
The Fourth-Grade Paper That Gave Me Away (Short Story) - 10/1/2025 1:46:59 PM
I was fascinated by your story. And by your relatives. My great great grandfather Nelson Hull, was a blacksmith from Sheboygan Wisconsin in those regiments along with five of his brothers. Blacksmiths survived the war.
While my twin brother and I were adventuring at that age, I wasn't writing as well as you. But recently I was scanning old documents and found a number of letters from my younger twin brothers who wrote me every time I sent them gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. Written on that same lined ring paper with a ballpoint pen.
I love to tell the story about picking up butts and smoking them when we were seven. Caught a building smoldering and got picked up by the police. Made me quit smoking.
Like you, I love writing about true adventures.
Ron
My First Publication Was a Letter to Santa (Article) - 11/22/2025 3:01:27 PM
What a wonderful thing to rediscover!
Recently, I've been going through old mementos and scanning some. Every year, I'd give my 16 year younger twin brothers something for Christmas or birthday. Apparently our mother made them write me thank you letters. I have been collecting and noting how their writing and penmanship changed. I don't remember the letters or what I gave them, so it was a nice jog to my memory. And I'm sending each one their letters once I've gathered them all for a laugh at 66.
You also jogged my memory of the time my twin brother Roger and I, at seven, after about two months of piano lessons from the 16-year-old girl from upstairs renting, we were invited to play one afternoon at the local radio station.
We seemed to have lost our ability to play and were greatly embarrassed along with the announcer. Stage fright kept me from performing for a long time.
Ron
How to Ruin a Poem in One Easy Step (Article) - 9/20/2025 10:30:33 AM
Funny but extremely annoying for the lady poetess.
Lack of proof reading in newspapers seems to be the norm these days.
I try to make sure I haven't made mistakes when writing articles, emails etc., but sometimes my eyes blink or go to sleep and miss something. Recently when writing to a friend I mentioned my husband's illness - "and in early 2083 Jim suddenly became very ill" - (should have been 2023) - when Jim read it and caught the error he laughed out loud, he is 89 years old now, am I trying to make him live forever!
Lighthouse keepers had to be a special breed, unless they had family with them it would have been a lonely solitary life. I visited the Lighthouse in the Mull of Galloway many years ago when it still had its crystal lamp, it was beautiful, some years later I went back for a second visit and the lamp had been replaced with an electric one. They had offered the crystal lamp to a museum but the offer was not taken up. So that beautiful lamp was smashed to bits and dumped in the sump. Very sad and a terrible act of vandalism, they could have made hundreds of souvenirs from it and raised money for the upkeep of the lighthouse.
I hope you finish writing your book.
Germany’s Gift to Holiday Cheer (Article) - 8/2/2025 7:41:51 PM
I quite enjoyed this posting, Dave, as someone with strong Austrian/German familial ties and a member of various German-American organisations (such as the STV, NF/TVN, OAV, DAV, SAC. et bloody cetera), even though I ran across it at the end of July...about as far from Weihnachts as one may get! German Christmas traditions add such richness to the holiday, of course! There is so much that we 'Mericanos owe the German speaking nations, of course, and a great tragedy that ever since the horrific predations of the Third Reich were perpetrated, Germany has ever since suffered from a sense of collective, self-imposed extreme guilt that seems never to abate. Of course, American socety is now so screwy and bizarrely disordered by its 'wokeisms', Marcusian/Marxist ideological fascinations and critical theory obsessions that almost nothing seems disordered against that bizarre backdrop. As a former undergrad at UCB in the People's Republic of Berzerkeley in the early 70s, I even had an erudite and articulate black friend who ernestly claimed to have a relative who was a 2WK Kriegsmarine U-boot skipper (a "Ka-Leut", or Kapitanleutnant). Wow. I never found any evidence of such a possibility in plowing through my U-boot archives and reference works on that aspect of Germany's war effort, but after that and ever since, NOTHING has ever seemed especially 'off the wall' when it comes to the affiars of our fellow Humming Beans (Homo saps), LoL (e.g. the Progressive leftist extremists calling anyone and everything they don't agree with a 'Nazi', etc.). -K2
How to Ruin a Poem in One Easy Step (Article) - 8/2/2025 7:21:00 PM
Love it! Light houses, their fascinating history and accounts of the deprivations and challenges so many keepers faced tending their charges, have always been a favorite subject of interest in general maritime history for me. Several riveting histories have been written about 'Terrible Tillie', for example, the starkly isolated light on Tillamook Rock, just off Tillamook Point (in Oregon) with a focal height of 133 feet AMSL, but to the best of my recollections, precious few mentions seem to exist pointing to frustrated poets ever sequestered on such sites. Given that since its deactivation as an active coastal navigational, 'Terrible Tillie' has become a somewhat macabre repository for the ''cremains' of departed souls, one could make a credible claim that the fantasmic spirits that now inhabit that picturesque locale could be plausibly described by the phrase, "My light is a soul keeper..." [Sorry, I couldn't resist this, as a founding (or is it 'floundering?') member of the infamous Sacramento BAD POETS SOCIETY, who has a great many deplorably creative urges.] -K2
How to Ruin a Poem in One Easy Step (Article) - 7/14/2025 11:28:12 AM
Unfortunately, a woman's role in those days.
I set a couple lines of lead font from a California job case in my first college printing course in 1961. It took me two hours to create those two lines – I hated it! I can't imagine creating a magazine or a book character by character with spacing that way. But those type setters had to be editors, too, in order to get the text printable for public reading.
Today,, we can get AI to write a book for us in whatever font or style we want and even color the font or mix it up, probably within 15 minutes. That error in 1908 was intentional and probably the type setter correcting the woman's poem, thereby ruining it.
Ron
Stories find us early! (Article) - 7/12/2025 12:18:22 PM
I was a Boy Scout, too. With my new spin cast rod and reel at 13, I was interested in charting rivers. At the back of my family's old homestead, I caught my first big, and biggest, fish ever. A 31.5 inch musky weighing 7.5 pounds.
When I lived in West Virginia looking down on the Cheat River crossing of George Washington, I recall driving through Gettysburg more than once on my way to my brother's place in Fort Washington. But I never had time to stop and look around.
Ron
What Makes History Come Alive (Article) - 7/11/2025 2:05:50 PM
You're right. The History Channel, PBS and other channels like Discovery, are very good at bringing history to life again with passion and with realistic characters that may or may not have behaved the way they are shown but are shown as faithfully as we can imagine from what was written in those times… often only sensational newspaper articles… to support the authenticity of the story.
I learned something new about Delaware every time I read one of your stories. And of the people of the time.
Ron
Antebellum Black Christmas (Article) - 10/1/2024 2:02:52 PM
I learned just this morning in a quiz that Delaware is considered the "First State." And from your fine research Delaware was one of the leading states and emancipating slaves well before the Emancipation Proclamation. And I loved reading the antidotes from Christmas practices like prolonging the festivities with a Yule Log to escaping during the time no one was looking.
When I arrived in Atlanta in 1980, I soon learned that the Presbyterian Church had brought a railroad car to Atlanta after the fire and parked it on the west side of downtown where he became Atlanta University where I worked three years as an associate professor and Atlanta University Center where other fine colleges for blacks developed during the Jim Crow period.
Ron
The Romance of Mistletoe (Article) - 9/4/2024 1:02:33 PM
While I grew up with kissing mistletoe in Wisconsin, I didn't pay much mind to it until I was traveling to South Texas to visit my parents and saw it in the trees around Christmas time when they had no leaves. More recently, I've seen it in trees on my block.
So your article left me wondering if mistletoe is native to much of the country whether it came from Europe like some other parasites and then started to grow throughout the United States.
Very interesting to read especially about how the myth got started about kissing.
Ron
The Rise and Fall of Christmas Savings Clubs (Article) - 8/26/2024 12:10:54 PM
I wasn't aware of Christmas Savings Clubs, so I appreciate the thorough discussion and history of their origin and use.
When my twin brother and I were born in 1942, our mother started savings accounts for us with our birth money. I'm not sure if she ever had a Christmas Savings Club, but I do recall on our best present combining Christmas and our birthday, on the 21st, was a set of World Book Encyclopedias. They cost the amazing sum of $120 when we were about 8 or 9. She paid $10 a month for the 12 months leading up to Christmas so they could be delivered and displayed under the tree Christmas morning. We knew they didn't come from Santa because we knew that Mom worked hard to save money to buy us Christmas presents that were mostly useful, like clothes.
We used our savings accounts to buy our first used bicycles at 9 years of age. I credit Mom with giving us good sense money management at an early age. All of our earnings went into our savings accounts. We didn't spend money on toys or candy like the other kids. Eventually, we were saving for college and I used savings accounts through graduate school. I eventually got a bank checking account and savings account in 1966 when I received Fellowship money. I didn't open a credit card until I was in my doctoral program when we were traveling a lot in 1972.
From friends that I know that are rather frugal, I've heard that they use layaway plans offered by most of the major retailers. I consider that a replacement for Christmas savings clubs.
Ron
Delaware’s Christmas House Tours (Article) - 8/24/2024 1:41:42 PM
Very thorough and entertaining. While we decorated our homes for relatives and friends when they visited during the holidays, I don't recall any private house tours during the Christmas season in north-central Wisconsin where I lived. Probably the popularity was generated by, as you describe, by Delaware's much longer history and architecturally significant homes dating back to the 1600s.
Ours were mostly Victorian and the one we lived in, in the 1950s, was run down. But I recently noted that it is still standing where many around it have been torn down.
Ron
Orthodox Christmas Roots in Delaware part 2 of 2 (Article) - 8/17/2024 9:27:17 AM
Thank you for all the detailed information about the three Orthodox sects in Delaware. I have not known of Orthodox traditions during the holidays before and it was entertaining to read. Although a five-week or even a 20 day fast is a bit extreme for my blood.
I can translate that information from Delaware to wherever people from have immigrated from Greece, Ukraine or Russia.
I especially like the way you the ended article with your observation about how ethnic minorities from immigrants assimilate into our society. Initially trying to avoid attention (and discrimination), but when firmly a part of Americans society, once again proud of their ethnic traditions and want to bring them to our attention… Especially food, clothing and rituals.
Ron
A Frigid Fish Fable for Festive Fun (Article) - 8/13/2024 11:42:43 AM
Charles Clark surely had a gift for humor and the absurd is evidence in the poem. I only wished that he had rhymed Keyser with geyser after that colossal sneeze.
An interesting fellow that I never heard of, but another Delaware product that you do so well in sharing with us from your historical research.
I recently did a query on the value of Poor Richard's Almanac, and was dismayed at how little they are valued even from 1776.
Ron
Christmas Lawn Trees and Lit Landscapes (Article) - 8/10/2024 12:07:27 PM
Another thorough article on the origins of outdoor Christmas lighting in Delaware and throughout the country to follow. It seems to me that early on when housing was provided with coal gas from nearby gas companies like ours was in a Victorian in Wausau Wisconsin that had been converted to electricity, outdoor gas lights may have been used for decoration as well as lighting walks in front porches. Rather than using candles.
Prior to electricity, that was also dangerous, I have learned that many people burned candles on their Christmas trees in the house. A very dangerous thing to do. I can imagine what it was like
in late December having your house burned down leaving you out in the cold because of a Christmas tradition.
Ron
Yuletide Metamorphosis From Sinterklaas to Santa Claus (Article) - 8/4/2024 2:50:40 PM
Almost more than I wanted to know. But interesting how a cultural icon morphs through time and place to become the icon, Santa Claus we know today.
You are right, the original St. Nicholas would probably cringe at the use of Santa Claus in such a commercial way to sell parents and children and amusements and toys they quickly they quickly discard or other thing. Why am glad my parents were smart enough to let us know that Santa Claus wasn't real very early, but in his name gave us real presents of value that we used and appreciated greatly all the way to adulthood.
Ron
Punch Card Christmas Wreaths (Article) - 7/30/2024 1:58:22 PM
From my first computer programming class in 1962 until magnetic tape and floppy disks took over the process, at my doctoral studies where I use them in my dissertation, I produced countless punched Hollerith cards that were invented about the turn of the 20th century and used by various calculating and storage machines before IBM them up like you have so thoroughly described in your article.
I recall throwing some of them in the trash, but when we got recycling bins in office we hope we recycled them by using the bins.
I never had time for crafts, although I did craft some easy things along the way. My extended family, especially the women, in the 1960s got heavily into crafts and I purchased some of those items from family and friends. I never put a wreath on my door and have never seen a Hollerith card wreath but your illustration gives me a great idea what it looked like.
Ron
How GPT helps history writers (Article) - 12/4/2023 1:21:11 PM
Thank you for enlightening me to your use ChatGPT-4. I haven't used it yet. But I've always been one of the first to use new technologies like word-processing, speech control of computers and dictation where my spelling is immaculate but often the wrong word creeps in.
My really not very famous, but best-selling, book was delayed six months while an artist ended up giving me a cover I didn't like. Obviously it was not relevant to most of the book's content, but I had no way of getting him to change it for the better. So I have decided to use AI for my next cover because the image I have for the cover in my mind would exceed my unsteady spasming ability to do artwork anymore. Besides, I don't have the software tools.
I'm also about ready to place a lot of books and magazines that may be of some worth for sale on eBay. I noted that they have AI now for writing descriptions, and I will welcome that when I get on that onerous task of putting over 200 items up for sale.
Ron
Red Ruffing’s Dover Chapter: From Minors to Majors (Article) - 10/31/2023 10:01:47 AM
I didn't know of Red Ruffing until now. Thank you.
But my father liked a young man named Henry Aaron played for a minor-league in Eau Claire Wisconsin. When the Milwaukee Braves sold to Atlanta, Hank was afraid of going to the South. But it worked out well for him. In 1980 had a business conference led by his wife, Billye, I got to meet him and tell them how much my father loved watching him play on television. And once a year at Milwaukee County Stadium.
During my sophomore year in football, my twin brother and I were sent down to the 9th grade by the football coach. After beating up the poor 9th graders, we were sent back where we promptly decided to quit when I found out that I was way too small for the power of linebackers as a halfback. It only took one crack-back tackle numbing my body to realize I wasn't going to be football material.
Ron
The Federal Art Project’s Pinnacle in Delaware (Article) - 10/28/2023 12:24:55 PM
I went to a WPA built high school. But don't remember if there were any paintings or murals there. There was a debate over a swimming pool or an observatory and the observatory won. But the telescope remained in a doctor's garage and the observatory was never used.
But I'm well aware of the artwork from that program. It seemed to have had some strict rules because it always showed working people as far as I know. And that may have been the parameter that was required in order for artists to be paid. Today, similar programs allow graffiti artists and muralists to paint walls in cities changing them from ugly eyesores to beautiful displays of homegrown talent.
I'm all in favor of a WPA like program for artists, musicians, writers and others that devote their careers to creative efforts rather than enter the highly technically driven workplace of today as more and more lose their jobs and have to go into low-paying service jobs only to lose them to AI. It is time that those who haven't become stars or rich for our work be given a living wage while we apprentice to become stars.
Ron
Electrification Efforts Elevate Everyday Existence (Article) - 10/25/2023 10:27:57 AM
REA certainly brought the country forward. A similar need for broadband Internet and rural areas exists today.
Ron
From Hen House to Poultry Powerhouse (Article) - 10/23/2023 8:38:30 AM
Thank you for the story of how chickens became a major food source. When I was growing up we always had chicken dinner on Sunday after church. Mom insisted on 6 week old broilers. They certainly were more tender the old hens and roosters that she had to eat when they were on the farm.
Colonel Sanders and Super Bowl buffalo wing snackers owe their good fortune to Cecile Long Steele.
Ron
From Wobbly Watts to Broadcast Brilliance (Article) - 10/19/2023 10:55:13 AM
Reminds me of the story of KDKA radio in Pittsburgh, the first broadcasting station in the country. It was the spirit of innovation and competition that continues today with Internet companies and the whole transformation of how movies have eventually left the theaters and moved into home theaters as streaming companies compete over ways of providing entertainment and information.
I still watch the local television stations that have evolved to meet the changes of the times in the last 40 years that I've lived here In Houston. it is really interesting that the ABC network is owned by Disney.
Ron
Family Ingenuity and the Fabric of Innovation (Article) - 10/15/2023 11:21:21 AM
Thanks for the detailed account of the development of ePTFE. Like other polymers, they have become a boon to humankind, as well as a bane. You mentioned Teflon, now virtually banned because of what it does in our bodies, but you didn't mention if there's any danger from ePTFE used so widely in fabric. Does it normally break down, or last nearly forever in the environment?
Ron
The American Liberty League’s Stand Against The New Deal (Article) - 10/14/2023 10:57:24 AM
I knew there was opposition to FDR's programs. Thank you for clearly and succinctly illustrating what the American Liberty League was.
Since the 1980s, the Republican plan has been to reverse FDR's programs. Perhaps the most dramatic, was the repeal of the inheritance tax. Allowing wealthy dynasties to grow their wealth each generation. And when faced with the pandemic, president Donald Trump gave away more of the taxpayer money to the wealthy, proportionately, than he gave to the working people of the country out of their jobs.
Ron
