In Memory of Dr. John Thomas Bailey (South Louisiana Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1866) We’ve all of us heard o’ the Queen o’ the West In the summer o’ forty-five. And how they desp’ratly clung t’ the boats When she took her final dive. We’ve all of us heard of the boilin’ sun. And the hunger And tharst bearin’ down For twenty-nine days on the rolling sea And prayin’ for to drown. Some says they ate their shipmates So as to stay alive. Ninety-eight souls in two little boats And ended with thirty-five. And we’ve all of us heard o’ Doctor Death And his pickin’ who lived and who died. And…

Properly speaking this is not a spell but it fits into the same general category. It is effective and does work. It requires practice the same as any other incantation or procedure. The procedure is not dangerous if the instructions are followed exactly. Ur does require practice and patience and will likely not produce noticeable results on the first few attempts. This is an exercise that will give you a sample of Temporal Displacement and Travel. It is fairly easy to do, but takes a lot of practice. It is perfectly safe, if you follow the directions exactly. You can use it to travel both time and in space, to other…

Part of a new begining… at AVONDALE! http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/AvondaleTheRPG/ Avondale is a completely new and innovative concept in original Historically Based Role Playing Games. Age Range: Adult (17+) It’s 1901 and the world is entering a new century. It’s a time of rapid growth and expansion; a time of industrialization and commerce — of waves of immigration to the land where “the streets are paved with gold”. The United States has just engaged in it’s first “foreign war” and has suddenly found itself with an unwanted and unwelcome “colonial empire” and comittments to far-away places and peoples. It is a time of transition in which old meets new. TR is in…

I’ll Wait For You It was the summer of 1994, and Nikolai Nikolaiovich was dying. He knew he was dying, and he was ready to go. He had cancer. That was alright with Nikolai. He was ninety-four years old, and he had outlived all of his family, all of his friends, and most of his relatives. In his long life, he had seen the world change in ways that he did not understand, could not fathom, and did not like. The cancer, in fact, had come as a sort of perverse blessing. He had long before made his peace with whatever powers that be. Now, as he lay in his…

Feldwebel Moritz This story is not my own. It has been told in several places, but… I happen to know the man that it happened to, and heard the story directly from him. His summer house, the one in the story, is located near my own. I will relate the story as it was told to me, with as little interruption as possible. I will not mention full names, as Chris is a member of a “respected” profession, and is bit sensitive about this. Two years ago, Chris and his wife went to their country house in his wife’s village, near Smolensk. This area saw some of the heaviest fighting…

I’ll Never Leave You, Mama It was a warm and sunny day in late spring, and the two little boys had been out, like most of the local children, playing in the forest, and picking berries… a common enough passtime for a pair of six years olds in a sleepy little Russian village. It was 1962… a tense year for the world as a whole, but not so tense for the inhabitants of Stoyietal, which, having been bypassed by the recently constructed M-8 Motorway, was a lethargic place, with most of the local “community” life centered around the usual Russian activites of work, school, The Party and The Church. The…

General Curtis E. LeMay The Man Who Most Likely Knew it “All” General Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was a four-star general in the United Staes Air Force  and the longest  tenured  commanding officer of any independent command in the United States military. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective, but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theatre of Operations of The Second World War. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan. After the war, he headed the Berlin Airlift, then reorganized the  Strategic Air Command  (SAC) into an…

The Last of the Boys in Blue It was November 11th, 1968, and even though it sounds trite and overused, I actually do remember it just as if it were yesterday. I was standing in my grandfather’s living room tapping my foot and being impatient while the old man finished putting on his old uniform, the one that he’d lovingly preserved for over 70 years. I know for a fact that next door, Sherry, my girlfriend and soon to be fianc?e, was doing the same thing while Papa Pete, her grandfather, was doing exactly the same thing, and two houses farther down Bobby Adkinson was doing the same thing while…

DUCK TALES If you have ever seen the Black and White version of “A Tale of Two Cities” you are familiar with the actor who played “Sidney Carton”, the main character. His name was Ronald Coleman. In any case, Coleman had one of the most beautiful, resonant voices ever to grace stage or screen. If you have ever seen this motion picture, you know what I mean. His final lines are as unforgettable, now, as they were when he spoke them, over seventy years ago. Ronald Charles Colman was born at Richmond, Surrey, England on February 9, 1891. Height 5 feet 11 inches; dark brown hair and eyes; weight 158…

A Little Child Shall Lead Them Vologda is a quiet town. It is one of the oldest towns in Russia, and a part of the famous “Golden Ring” of cities making up traditional “Old Russia”. Unlike some of the other cities on “the ring”, it is not known to be particularly haunted.  The skyline of the town is dominated by the spires of one of the oldest and most elaborate Russian Orthodox Churches still in constant use, and the gabled Victorian eminence of the Vologda Children’s Home, on a sugarloaf hill on the southern outskirts of the town. The saying that “nothing ever happens in Vologda” has some relevance. However,…