Content 21+ Mercifully, I live in Europe so I am spared — aside from what I masochistically choose to read on the various sites — the usual avalanche of American nonsense about the Christmas Holidays — and yes, I continue to refer to them pointedly as such: The Christmas Holidays.
Thanksgiving has just finished and I feel safe in imagining that millions of American people celebrated joyously in the customary … Read the rest
Content 21+ It was my first plane ride, and the stewardesses had no choice but to be beautiful back in those days; it was part of the job. Even now, I can see the reason. It was to inspire confidence. Aviation was not as safe then as it supposedly is now. I have never looked at the statistics, but I do know — from my grandfather’s own account — that … Read the rest
Content advisory 18+ I decided to start writing my posts in English as well as in Russian. Why so? Well, I’m here for the future, and English is an international language. I honestly think that limiting yourself just to one language is a demonstration of laziness…or stagnation, or stubbornness.
Many nations consider themselves as indisputably ‘great’, forgetting the darker sides of their history, ignoring the fact, amid the shifting geography … Read the rest
Second part. First part is here.
On 28 August, 1963, I came home from somewhere one mid-afternoon. The new school year hadn't started, so the early part of the day remains a blank. Except that I was in Charleston, West Virginia, and we lived in a big ramshackle white house at the end of a dead-end street way up in the hills.
When I walked through the door, our … Read the rest
