Author: Vic Socotra

Gremlin Gazette

1944-1945 This is a trial run for some of the sketches Dear Old Dad did while awaiting further transport at the end of the Really Big War, the Second one of them. You will note W. E. continued his fledgling self-training as an artist and tried to capture some of the people and events of […]

Turkey Travel

9,604 cancelled is one of the phrases being worked on this morning by senior officials. That is, Gentle Reader, scheduled jet flights by major carriers for which the Department of Transportation Security is responsible. Not the production of the jets themselves, that being a different sort of thing, mind you. Many of our citizens are […]

“Breaking News!”

From Socotra House LLC! This Just In! Tuesdays are really the first real contribution to the Weather Report sit-down session. That is where we pick the threads unfolding for their continuity across the end of the week. The goals is to collect the stories with the impact to actually affect the course of social and […]

Arrias: But the Trains Ran On Time

Author’s Note: This whole thing just makes my head feel like it’s about to explode….Arrias In 1942, a short while after the US landed in North Africa, several US soldiers were convicted of raping a local woman. They were tried and found guilty. The commanding general – George Patton, approved their sentence and had them […]

Make It a Thousand!

It was a Saturday was riddled with discontinuities. There was a disconcerting fact that floating up by the fire ring and we don’t know how to deal with it gracefully. Let’s get the whole troubling thing out of the way. The issue is about M’s this week, so let’s dispense with that business first. The […]

Weather Forecast: Holiday Lights Looming!

All right! Only a year to go until that election thing! We are trying to get organized, since there has been a flurry of the smaller holidays lately, the ones that serve to prepare us for the Big Ones. Like today- there are 15 special days for the 18th alone, including celebration of the Battle […]

Nellie Bly Beats Some 55-Gallon Drums

(The image above is of author and Stunt Reporter Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, circa 1916). We have been looking at her remarkable life this week because her pen-name became a real one in our Family. She was widely known as “Nellie Bly,” a name taken from an old Stephen Foster song. Elizabeth made her name by […]

Around the World With Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly was a journalism pioneer, not just for women, but for all reporters. She had burst into the public view with her account of ten days in a mental asylum for women. But in 1889, another one of her projects attracted even more attention: a trip around the world by train, steamship, rickshaw, horse […]

Ten Days in the Mad-House

(Elizabeth Cochran Seaman at rest in Mexico in 1885, and before she became a false mad-woman and then world traveler. This is how our family borrowed her pen-name “Nellie Bly” for our Elizabeth, who carried the name all of her life- and ours!) All right, we want to continue the story of how the greatest […]

Meeting Nelly Bly

(This is the real Nelly Bly, circa 1887, whose real name was Elizabeth Cochran Seaman. She was an Pennsylvania adventurer with whom we thought we shared DNA until this morning!) Morning, Gentle Readers! The Chairman was stunned this morning and burst into the Production Meeting with unexpected verve and energy. We are not kidding on […]