Blog – Pending
The Hanseatic League (8/20/2025) It’s a stretch to think of my grandfathers as being in league with Europe’s Hanseatic cities. They were both people of the land — one a farmer to the core and the other a land reclaimer. But they stem from people who lived close to the Hanseatic sea routes or their connecting waterways, in an… …
Keep in the Castle (8/20/2025) Build walls to keep out the bad and you have a small garden of Eden — ‘paradeisos’, literally, an enclosed park. Castles and their compounds, cities with walls and even humble homes are meant to be places of peace and well being, protecting us from threatening forces. They are not aggressive by nature (though they… …
Father Feito (8/20/2025) It is indisputable that I have north Netherlands Catholic roots. I can trace many family lines back to the sixteenth century (almost all in the same neck of the woods), and thus, by extrapolation, to undocumented ancestors in the fifteenth century. It’s safe to say then that my people, and their culture, were largely Reformed… …
Patriarchy (8/20/2025) Patriarchy has been a problem, not because it’s some grand conspiracy, but because of a lack of good will. …
The Age of Aquarius (8/20/2025) The Middledom Manifesto: This is where I stand, neither to the left or to the right, but feet feeling their way through the middle, between the past and the future, between the good and the bad, between certainty and doubt. …
The Minstrel’s Journey (11/1/2016) I don’t know when the minstrel came to our household or from where. But it was ages ago and he’s been with us ever since. …