You’ve read family histories. Pretty dry, right?



Not Leslie Huber’s The Journey Takers.



A friend of Leslie, who had read an early draft, handed the manuscript back and asked, “Who am I supposed to be cheering for?”



Georg and Mina Albrecht, Leslie’s Germany ancestors who made the journey to America? Karsti Nilsdotter, Leslie’s great-great-great-great grandmother who came here from… Continue

In November.



And this will be the unexpurgated edition. In it is everything Twain dictated to his secretary during the last four years of his life. He died in 1910.



Twain specified that the most controversial parts of the manuscript be left out of any printed editions for a century, lest those sections damage Twain’s image or his reputation.



Said he in his instructions back in 1906, “From the first, second, third and fourth… Continue

Howard Cherry is one of Roy Rogers’ biggest fans. He befriended Rogers decades ago, and, over the years, Cherry has purchased some of Roy’s movie costumes, hats, and revolvers.



The two men are the same size, so from time to time Cherry dons a Rogers outfit for a photo shoot.



Now here’s the surprise. Cherry owns the Hopalong Cassidy Museum in Cambridge, Ohio – Cassidy, another cowboy movie, radio, and television hero.



I met… Continue

A rescue helicopter almost wiped out Apollo 11 as the capsule fell toward the Pacific Ocean, says writer Scott Carmichael in Moon Men Return, his new book out from the Naval Institute Press.



Carmichael grew up in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, not far from where I live. He’s now a senior investigator with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington.



Said a reporter in her story after she… Continue