Learning From The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Day 68

Downtown Tucson They all seem plausible. They all seem understandable. But they all seem straining toward different directions. A shared point, a common bond, is absent and without it, it's hard to know where to go except farther down a single lane of reality, of life. The junction is empty and open and not yet joined. Five paths pull against the center. Day 68, November 14, 1918. One. … [Read more...]

Learning From The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Day 38

On Day 38, October 15, 1918, the heat turns up. Inside the pot, steam rises, water boils, and something turns over and over. At the town of Verdun on the banks of the Meuse River, a group of boys-boiled-men follows Captain Harry Truman back into combat. They've been away from the fighting Germans for a bit. Their enemy for some days was the sickness, influenza, that is killing as many as the … [Read more...]

Learning From The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Day 18

A Jackie Band near Winnekta, Illinois, 1918 News large and important. Printed in newspapers, transcribed on telegrams, written in letters. Read by thousands, read by dozens, read by one. Word is spreading about life in a world that is—like it or not, choose it or not, know it or not—abruptly new. Day 18, September 25, 1918. For the thousands... A leading newspaper in Charlotte, North … [Read more...]