Thursday, December 12, 2024
Michael Stone Online

Others Could Sing ‘Higher’ on Ed Sullivan, Just Not Jim Morrison

Recently, while learning the guitar chords to The Mamas & the Papas’ “Creeque Alley,” I listened to the group’s 1967 performance of the song on the Ed Sullivan Show. As the four harmonized, some of the lyrics stuck out because [...]

February 21, 2022 Music & Arts, Reflections, Tech

The Frat House that Gave Us ‘Animal House’

You’d say there’s nothing extraordinary about — nothing worth writing about — an old, dilapidated fraternity house, and I’d agree. Except in this case. Because it’s the one that inspired Harold Ramis in his contributions to the script of 1978’s [...]

February 14, 2022 History, Music & Arts, Travel & Culture

My 9/11 Recollections

They aren’t anything impactful or otherwise of importance, but here they are. In ninth grade at Boyd Buchanan in Chattanooga. At far side of school’s relatively new high school building, coming from biology and rounding corner to walk into Spanish [...]

September 11, 2021 History, Reflections, Travel & Culture

Russell Pickett, Last of Omaha Beach’s ‘Suicide Wave,’ Dies at 95

Russell Pickett, the last known survivor of the Company A “suicide wave” at Omaha Beach on D-Day, passed away on Aug. 2 at age 95. I’ll be forever grateful to Pickett for welcoming me into his home in 2019 and [...]

August 28, 2020 History, Journalism/Communications, Reflections

Florida Shorebirds See Breeding Bump After Hurricane Michael

In October 2018, Hurricane Michael and its Category 5 winds inflicted tremendous destruction to Florida, causing an estimated $18.4 billion in damage and an eventual 50 deaths in the state. More than a year later, human communities in the state’s [...]

January 14, 2020 Journalism/Communications, Nature & Wildlife, Travel & Culture

Remembering World War II Veteran Bob Gasche

In 2016, Bob Gasche joked about besting fellow World War II veteran and former President George H.W. Bush. They had both went skydiving in old age, “but he was on his 90th birthday,” Gasche told me in an interview that [...]

December 17, 2019 History, Journalism/Communications, Reflections