...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 Breed Act forbade borrowing another California driver’s vehicle without permission, but neglected to assess a penalty for its violation. This old article points out the folly of such a law by spinning this story:

The Bakersfield Californian

April 10, 1925

Keefe Arrested

Now comes Ed Keefe of Taft into the story. Not so long ago Keefe. a young man, became…

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…

This year AVID students -- kids whose family backgrounds do not include a college experience -- invited me, their AP European History teacher, to go on the Northern California college tour, and I was honored. I had never visited Cal until a few years ago, with another…

Somewhere we have a penciled thank-you note from John W. Davis, who is about as famous as whichever team finished third in the National League pennant race in 1939. (It was the Dodgers, 12 1/2 games out.) Davis was the Democratic nominee for President in 1924, and he…

What’s hard about doing your family tree is finding some branches you’d rather break off, and one that comes to mind is a Kentuckian, a Gregory, whose 19 slaves were identified only by gender and age in the 1850 census, as if they were machine parts rather than human beings. That’s…

From November 2013

*    *    *

I’ve been thinking about the assassination of President Kennedy a lot the last two weeks. I will be…

A visit to the cemetery next to little Mission Dolores reveals how important the Irish influence was on the city, and how brief life could be on the Gold Rush frontier.…

http://http://jimgregory52.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/my-son-the-brother/

Kudos to the California State Department of Military History for posting this on their Facebook Page. 

Historic California Militia

and National Guard Units:

The Wolfe Tone Guard

Military Unit…