“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
For audio version click here Frank Stadler was a career criminal with an arrest record stretching back to 1925. On January 21, 1950, he was shot to death in Lebanon as he attempted to escape from a burglary gone bad. My father was there. I want to know what happened on that cold night 62 years ago. My father’s State Police stories were funny and free of the harsher aspects of the job. They might […]
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For audio version click here Three days ago I heard the first of the Spring peepers along the French Creek. Red-winged blackbirds have been back for a couple of weeks. There are more bluebirds about; their songs are louder. Away from the wind, in the afternoon, the sun is stronger and carries more heat. The owls are feeding their young. I found a pellet under our swamp maple; broken open carefully on a Kleenex, it contained […]
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For audio version click here My father could be charming and courtly. His manners were impeccable. He looked good in a sport jacket, his tie in a perfect Windsor knot, and in his uniform, he was a poster boy for handsome professionalism with a spine as straight as a girder. He believed in the door held open for women, the box step and the waltz, the good story to lift spirits and entertain. I saw […]
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For audio version click here Twenty seven years old, only three years into his career, my father and one other Trooper drove into the aftermath of shootings and surging, furious crowds and a deep, complex, violent labor history. This is the lead of the news story that describes the day: “Gunshot fire rang out, clubs were wielded and stones hurled in a violent clash between private detectives and bootleg miners at the scene of the new stripping […]
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