"Genealogy is an account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own." -Ambrose Bierce I was named after my late father Joseph Howard Manning, which makes me a junior. My mother was afraid that I might be called "Little Joe," so I was known as … [Read more...]

Last Christmas, with the help of my son-in-law, I learned how to use my computer to make CDs from my old record albums and cassette tapes. Since I was a teenager, I have been an ardent music fan with a wide variety of tastes (jazz, classical, rock, folk, Latin, film scores, … [Read more...]

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." -William Faulkner I grew up in Dowell, Maryland, a town so small that you didn’t need a phone very often, because everyone you knew (or needed to know) was within hollering distance. Dowell was just a few houses on one side of a … [Read more...]

My wife and I recently took up temporary residence for a month in my mother’s house, after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She spent her final weeks at a wonderful Hospice facility nearby. It was a sad and stressful time, but the friendly people and the comfortable … [Read more...]

I lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, from August 1948 to January 1951. My father and mother, Joe and Betty, married in 1939, but they saw little of each other for a while, thanks to the Army and World War II. When Dad came home in 1945, they moved to an apartment at Calvert Homes, … [Read more...]

I was born in Washington, DC, and lived in the rural suburbs of Prince George’s County, including Greenbelt, before moving 60 miles south to even more rural Solomons Island in 1951. I came from a musical family. My paternal grandparents were string players who had traveled … [Read more...]

As a D.C.-area native, I was doomed to be a Washington Senators fan from the time my grandfather took me to the first of many games at Griffith Stadium soon after World War II. Summer days were filled with the voices of Arch McDonald and Bob Woolf. The Washington Senators: … [Read more...]

Greenbelt was one of three planned communities created by the federal government during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. Built on farmland in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, near Washington, it began housing applicants, mostly young families and government workers, in … [Read more...]

Many newspapers carry movie reviews that are published especially for parents who want to know if films rated from "G" to "PG-13" have content that might be offensive or disturbing to children. Some of the reviewers, perhaps bored by the task, fashion rather colorful and graphic … [Read more...]

Many years ago, I saw a small article in my local newspaper. It was just one of those "filler" articles, but it struck me. I asked myself: "How can this possibly be true, and will any readers question its validity? Or will everyone just take its absurd claim for granted? So I … [Read more...]

“I have to go back into the past once more. Just once more. And then I’ll be free of the past.” -Jimmy Stewart, in the movie Vertigo. I served a four-year hitch in the Air Force from 1962 to 1966. I was a medical corpsman. In my last two years, I was fortunate to be assigned … [Read more...]

Carl Robare called me. For almost 10 years, we've been meeting for coffee early in the morning about once a week in North Adams, Massachusetts. He was born in the city, but lives just over the line in Stamford, Vermont. Carl says, "I was at the Houghton Cemetery in Stamford this … [Read more...]

Two weeks ago, I had a short reunion with two of my best friends with whom I was stationed in the Air Force in Colorado Springs in the 1960s. We reminisced about our drive across the Rockies to see a concert by the Dave Brubeck Quartet in May of 1965. He appeared at Western State … [Read more...]

I lived the last half of my childhood in Solomons Island and Dowell, Maryland. I was known then as Howard Manning. My father, also Joe, was a marine biologist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, and my mother, Betty, worked there as a librarian. I lived in the Washington, … [Read more...]

From 1964 to 1966, I served my final two years in the Air Force at the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs. I was a medical corpsman, working mostly on the maternity ward, where wives of Air Force men had their babies. It was a cool assignment, and I enjoyed living … [Read more...]

"Our guardian star lost all his glow/The day that I lost you/He lost all his glitter the day you said no/And his silver turned to blue/Like him, I am doubtful that your love is true/But if you decide to call on me/Ask for Mr. Blue." November 1959, College Park, Maryland: The … [Read more...]

It used to snow when we were kids, all day, waist deep, pure white. It would start with a few flakes here and there and grow into a windy swirl. When I saw you for the first time in forty years, I remembered the snow. You waiting at the top of the hill, my eyes … [Read more...]

"And she became the sad Carlotta. Alone in the great house...walking the streets alone...her clothes becoming old and patched and dirty. The mad Carlotta...stopping people in the streets to ask: ‘Where is my child? Have you seen my child?' Poor thing. And then she died...by her … [Read more...]