Archive for November, 2013

Whenever the forecasters call for windy weather on Thanksgiving, I always wonder whether the giant balloons are going to appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. If the wind speeds are higher than 34 miles per hour, the balloons don’t fly. That’s because in 2006, Macy’s incorporated several safety measures to prevent accidents and balloon-related […]

This Thanksgiving story is dedicated to Old Tom and his fox terriers, and to all the other nameless and unfortunate souls who are interred with him on this island of the dead.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1907, all of the prisoners and felines at Essex Market received a big chicken dinner served by veteran matron, Mrs. R.R. Fitzgerald.

The amazing story of Artemas Fish, a mounted patrolman for what was then the more rural Prospect Park Police Precinct in Brooklyn.

Long before there was Morse code, wireless telegraphy, radio, TV, e-mail, wifi, and smart phones, there were homing pigeons, aka carrier pigeons or messenger pigeons. Carrier pigeons have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. Using “mental maps” and their remarkable abilities to find their way home, these carrier pigeons have been […]