...is in love with words. I retired as a high-school history teacher in June, but I finally wrote a book, about my California home town, which made a year's work a true labor of love. In 1941, it was a farm town, near the sea, of 1,090 souls. It was also a town of immigrants, people who very much like my ancestors--they were from the Azores, Japan, and the Philippines--and the book is largely about their children, who would carry the burden of the war. I think the writing is something I got…

The 2012 Olympic Games in London reminded me of my Dad (photo left, during World War 2). He lived in the great battered city during World War II, part of a colorful U.S. Army career that included:

* Discovering that the cook at Gardner Field in Taft, just over the county line of my Central California home, was…