Recovering from a stroke provides a fellow time to consider his future. I plan to make 2 changes as my 83^rd BD rapidly approaches. 

Sorry folks, but the JFK Encyclopedia is out the window, along with my sporadic posts to Facebook, Wild Geese, Linkedin, Irish Abroad, and my blog. 

I'm not going away, at least not yet – just refocusing.

In the very near future, you will both see and hear me on YouTube video. I'll let you know soon (that is as soon as I get making videos down.)

My YouTube video format will be simple, 7 to 10 minutes in length.:

I'll explain why I had included a particular passage, or why I highlighted an event, perhaps by asking a question then reading a few paragraphs describing the event.

For example:

“How many among you know that Israeli's Moshe Dayan personally observed, and commented on a 1966 American military operation in Vietnam?”

The answer arrived in a letter to Rory O'Donnell, then a newspaper reporter. You'll find it on pages 445-447 of Rory O'Donnell and the Kennedys, an historical novel, covering the decades from the end of WWII (1945) until Bobby's murder in 1968.

What makes this a unique reference book?

• Every chapter is a year.

• Plus every major issue – EVERY major Issue nationally and internationally, facing the world today, originated during those 2 decades.

Rory O'Donnell and the Kennedys and my other historical novels are available on both Kindle and Nook, as well as in soft cover from Amazon. Don't forget to include Francis in the author's search.

I'll let you know when my YouTube videos are available.

                                                                 -- James Francis Smith, historian and author of The Irish-American Chronicle