WhatFinger


Dr. Bruce Smith

Dr. Bruce Smith ([url="https://inkwellhearthandplow.blogspot.com/"]Inkwell, Hearth and Plow[/url]) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II,  may be ordered from [url="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=93188"]Indiana University Press[/url].

Most Recent Articles by Dr. Bruce Smith:

On The Road March 14-20

There is much that is positive to report from a trip to New England last week because Spring is on the way. It was a family visit journey, timed to allow a weekend there when grandkids were available. The plan was two days to get there, two days there, then two days back.

We left on Thursday, March 14 to make the two-day drive to the Boston suburbs. It was all winter grays and browns when we left, with nary a sign of spring anywhere. A major late winter storm was approaching our part of the heartland when we left our little freehold near the National Road west of Indianapolis and headed east to Columbus, Ohio, where we visited a family member.

- Monday, March 25, 2024

Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive, 1978

It’s one of the most inspiring songs of defiance ever written. The way Gloria Gaynor sings it tells me she must have known the pain herself.

She has been betrayed, discarded. She remembers how she almost whimpered. The tune is sad, withdrawn, injured, almost crying.

    At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong and I grew strong and I learned how to get along.
- Monday, March 18, 2024

Best Day Ever: The Blizzard of ’61, Part II

Best Day Ever Part I

As the daylight waned late on Saturday afternoon, there was growing concern for the fans at the field house. We heard that my oldest brother had made it home safely. We learned that the final game would be postponed, probably until Monday. By the time dark fell, there were still more than 3,000 fans stuck there. Some walked out to a nearby motel, but most of them spent the night in the giant gym.

- Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Best Day Ever: The Blizzard of ‘61

This is one of the most cherished memories of my Heartland childhood. Journey with me, dear reader, to those remarkable days in my memory, February 25th and 26th, 1961.

- Monday, February 26, 2024

How The West Was Won, Alfred Newman, 1962

Few composers possessed better skill at combining music with cinematic images than Alfred Newman (1900-1970). He scored more than 250 films. Nominated 45 times for an Academy Award, he won nine times.

- Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Why Don’t We Start Writing Letters Again?

We’ve all heard it before. We just don’t communicate very well now that communication is so much easier. How about a proposal to use the best of the past and the best of the present to get back to this time-honored practice?

- Monday, February 12, 2024

We Must Find a Way

Many times every day we encounter problems that need solutions. Each time we face a choice, we must find a way to go forward. We must find a way.


- Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle in Foyle’s War

It has been quite a while since I began the process of writing a first column about remarkable screen performances. Being a sucker for well-crafted film and television productions, I’m easily drawn into the story. As with good fiction and historical writing, it’s easy to be pulled into a narrative and feel as though I’m there with the characters or actors.

- Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam

Photo of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

Alabaster, noun
A dense, translucent, white or tinted fine-grained gypsum.

Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem in 1893, a remarkable year by any standard. She traveled from Boston to Colorado Springs, observing and marvelling all the way. Stopping at Niagara Falls, then the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she witnessed that astonishing celebration of the potential of free people.

- Monday, January 15, 2024

Going to Mickey D’s for the last time

This all began about three weeks ago. I’m not a “fast food” customer all that often, maybe once a week or a little less. Of course, it isn’t really fast food anymore, either. Still, I like to go there on a whim or as a little treat now and then. I usually go inside because I can check what I get before going back to the car.

I go to the counter in the oddly remodeled building. The order area is disorienting now, not familiar, not logical somehow. The lighting doesn’t seem quite right.

- Monday, January 8, 2024

The Shadow of Juan Peron

The elementary years were generally good for me. Still deep in the awkward stages, I didn’t like going to school, but I found lots of subjects to hold my interest. Fourth grade with Mrs. Miller was challenging with that impossible Palmer handwriting, and sixth grade was tough because Mrs. Holder didn’t appreciate the Goldwater sticker and quote on my notebook. Fifth grade, however was a delight, with the kindly Mrs. Kessler effortlessly keeping good order among her 40 charges, including me. She was firm, but she smiled often and made it clear that she loved her work and loved us. I basked in her glow and gave her my best efforts.

- Saturday, January 6, 2024

Edge of the World

I grew up in a world very different from the world today. So much has changed, but here and there are reminders of those days of the 1950s and early 1960s. One of those places is where US 40, the old National Road, has a junction with Indiana 103 at Lewisville, Indiana. This is what I saw there looking west on the afternoon of December 20, 2023.

- Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Musical Perfection: Ricky Skaggs, Highway 40 Blues

It’s a personal song for Larry Cordle, who wrote it about a stretch of road in his home state of Kentucky just about 42 miles long. The great Ricky Skaggs styled it in classic bluegrass fashion as only he can. He made an anthem and an ode out of it for everyone who ever headed out onto any road and came back home sadder but wiser.

- Sunday, December 24, 2023

The Winter of Our Discontent Continues

“Now is the winter of our discontent . . .” William Shakespeare, Richard III Act 1 Scene 1

Like the Duke of Gloucester’s (the future Richard III) discontent, these days there is unrest over who will wear the crown both behind the scenes and out in the open.

Gloucester is unhappy over his family’s recent victories because his brother is next in line of succession to an ailing king. His brother is content to be a rake instead of a dynasty builder. Gloucester wants the throne. He decides he will be a villain in order to get it.

- Sunday, December 24, 2023

Hard Lessons From the Kitchen and Garden

This is from the IMHO file. Your mileage may vary, perhaps widely. Too bad.

I’ve been called lots of things in my day, but a chef was never one of them.

Here are some of the anecdotal thoughts that blow around in my attic on a given day.

- Monday, December 18, 2023

Big Ol’ Comma

Growing up the first few years next to the grandparents’ farm in Henry County, Indiana, it was the most natural thing in the world to pay attention to the weather. I remember days with puffy cumulus clouds and chilly breezes after a storm. There was a spell of several days of rain one spring before I started school. There was a memorable blizzard in ’61 during the basketball tournament.

- Saturday, December 9, 2023

Oh, To Have Just One Day

How good it would be to have a deliberate day. It could be any day of a random week, or it could be a holiday. It would be better to plan it ahead a bit so as to enjoy its approach, anticipate its imminent arrival. We could savor it even before it arrives.

- Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Report From the Frugality Front

Herewith are some random observations from the Heartland along the old National Road west of Indianapolis.

Several Walmart stores in this area have undergone makeovers. The main change has been to rearrange most everything in the stores. Nothing is where it used to be.

- Thursday, November 23, 2023

Give Us This Day Someone Who Will Listen

A very close friend of mine is a mental health therapist. I’m an historian. We’re both in the same business, actually, the business of understanding human behavior. She works with present day behavior and past experiences. I work with present day behavior and past experiences. We have lots to talk about.

- Tuesday, November 21, 2023

To Whom Shall We Listen?

Over many years of teaching and advising students, I often used less elegant language to give them this adage: One of the most important choices we make in our lives is who to listen to.

As kids we don’t have much choice. We heard often that we should mind our mothers and listen to our elders. It’s a good concept, but not without its dangers. As kids we really are in no position to know better, and the younger we are the less likely we are to be able to choose wisely. We have no choice, really, at a young age but to hope that we get the guidance we need from the right people. 

- Monday, November 13, 2023

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