Happy Mother’s Day!

Each year, we celebrate Mother’s Day here in the United States (and Canada as well) on the second Sunday in May.  But do you know the history of this holiday?  Actually, it depends on the country.  For example, the United Kingdom’s version called Mothering Sunday actually started in the 16^th century and occurs on the fourth Sunday in Lent.  In South Korea, they celebrate Parents’ Day each year on May 8 (did you also know that we also have a Parents’ Day here in the US, signed into law in 1994 by President Clinton and observed on the fourth Sunday of July?).  The Mother’s Day as we celebrate it in the US today was officially recognized in 1914 after years of effort by activist Anna Jarvis.  And it’s observed by about 70 countries around the world.  Although it is highly commercialized today (lots and lots of cards and flowers and meals), the original intent was to honor our mothers, living or not.  This photo is my maternal grandmother, taken when she was about 20.  To all mothers out there, I hope your special day is indeed special.

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Enjoy Cinco de Mayo!

I think we’ve all heard of Cinco de Mayo, and probably associate it with Margaritas and dinner specials at Don Pablo, and that it means “5^th of May.”  But you may not know the origin of the holiday (which, by the way, is apparently a minor holiday in Mexico, but celebrated widely in the U.S.), so I did some research.

The day actually commemorates the Mexican Army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.  France had sent troops to Mexico over a defaulted loan, and the two armies clashed at Puebla, with the French finally retreating after the day-long battle.  Although it was more of a symbolic than strategic victory for Mexico, it did bolster the resistance, resulting in France’s departure 6 years later.

Enjoy this day any way you can!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Celebrating May Day

When I was growing up, I never thought there was anything special about May 1, other than we had less than 2 months until summer vacation.  But many cultures, particularly those in the Northern Hemisphere, do in fact celebrate it, and the day is a declared holiday in some of those cultures.  Many pre-Christian cultures regarded February 1 as the beginning of Spring, and May 1 then became the beginning of Summer, with cause to celebrate. In other cultures, it was regarded as the end of the unfarmable winter season, another cause for celebration.

What it seems to have become now is a celebration of culture.  Here in the United States, it’s known as Lei Day in Hawaii, where it is now a celebration of the island culture and Spring.

Whether it’s a holiday or not where you are, enjoy Spring!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Cheap New York City

Do you want to save some money in New York City?  If so, budgettravel.com offers a list of 16 Secret Bargains in the city based on interviews with locals, celebrities, editors, and readers, and some of them may surprise you.  Go to https://www.budgettravel.com/article/budget-travel-tips-best-kept-secrets-of-nyc-from-citys-savviest-celebs-insiders_52869; you won’t regret it!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Old-World New York City

Do you long for, or would you like to learn about, the old days of New York City?  If so, visit afar.com to enjoy a history lesson of New York landmarks including Grand Central, the New York Public Library, and Fraunces Tavern.  Go to https://www.afar.com/travel-tips/where-to-find-old-world-new-york-city; you’ll enjoy it!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Questions to How Well Do You Know Broadway?

Here are the questions to the Jeopardy! answers in the category “We’re Goin’ to Broadway” I posted a couple of weeks ago:

1. “A View from the Bridge” saw this woman win a 2010 Tony for Actress in a Featured Role in a play. – Who is Scarlett Johannson?
2. Songs in this show include “King Arthur’s Song,” “I Am Not Dead Yet” & “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway.” – What is “Spamalot?”
3. King George sings, “Cuz when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends & family to remind you of my love” in this show. – What is “Hamilton?”
4. This actor could have been a contender for the busiest 1946 – he was in at least 4 shows, including “Candida” as Eugene. – Who is Marlon Brando?
5. A story told in reverse, this Sondheim musical that ran 16 performances in 1981 returned to B’way in triumph in 2023. – What is “Merrily We Roll Along?”

I did better than I usually do with Broadway, as I got four of them right!  How did you do?

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Today is Easter, a Christian Holy Day

I wrote this post last Easter about my ancestors who were religious leaders.  This Christian Holy Day is an appropriate day to repost it.

 

1. Reverend John Rogers 1506-1555, 10th Great grandfather, charged with heresy by the Church of England for his Separatist beliefs and was burned at the stake during the reign of Queen Mary I (known as Bloody Mary)
2. Reverend John Lathrop 1584-1653 (shown above), 9th Great grandfather, also charged with heresy by the Church of England for his Separatist beliefs and exiled from England. He escaped with his family on a ship bound for America minutes before the Archbishop of Canterbury’s men arrived at his house to arrest him.
3. Deacon Richard Platt 1603-1684, 8th Great grandfather
4. Deacon Stephen Hart 1605-1683, 9th Great grandfather, arrived in Boston in 1632 then moved west and bought land at a low point of the Connecticut River which enabled crossing. The area was known as Hart’s Ford, later becoming Hartford.
5. Reverend Obadiah Holmes 1607-1682, 8th Great grandfather
6. Reverend Abraham Pierson 1609-1678, 9th Great grandfather, arrived in Boston in 1640 and later led his congregation to New Jersey, founding Newark in 1666.
7. Deacon Pierre Montfort 1616-1661, 8th Great grandfather
8. Deacon Willem van Couwenhoven 1636-1728, 7th Great Grandfather
9. Reverend Richard Henderson 1689-1769, 6th Great Grandfather

While I haven’t discovered any additional religious leaders in my family tree, I have found many more details about the men listed here.  I’ve started my next writing project, a short book about my religious and military ancestors, called Bibles and Bullets.  And I’m also working on another book about my wife’s uncle, called Bibles and Bullets 2: The Story of Father Joe. Thanks for your feedback and comments on my original idea!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

How Well Do You Know Broadway?

One of the categories on a past Jeopardy! episode was “We’re Goin’ to Broadway.”  Here are the answers; just come up with the correct question for each.  I’ll give those questions in a future post:

1. “A View from the Bridge” saw this woman win a 2010 Tony for Actress in a Featured Role in a play.
2. Songs in this show include “King Arthur’s Song,” “I Am Not Dead Yet” & “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway.”
3. King George sings, “Cuz when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends & family to remind you of my love” in this show.
4. This actor could have been a contender for the busiest 1946 – he was in at least 4 shows, including “Candida” as Eugene.
5. A story told in reverse, this Sondheim musical that ran 16 performances in 1981 returned to B’way in triumph in 2023.

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

This seems to be an appropriate time to write about St. Patrick’s Day, so I will.  Today is the national holiday of Ireland, and celebrates the life of Saint Patrick, a Christian missionary who lived in the 4^th and 5^th centuries.  It began as a religious holiday and became a public holiday in 1903.  The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade was held in Boston in 1737, but the longest-running and largest parade is in New York, which has run every year since 1762 (with modified format the years during Covid), and today attracts two million spectators and 150,000 marchers.  And green is the color of choice, with a river dyed green in Chicago, a canal in Indianapolis, and fountains in Savannah.  Even those not of Irish ancestry participate in the festivities (in fact, I’ve gone to several “St. Paddy’s Day” parties in the past, and I’ve got only one connection – McCracken – and that name hails from Northern Ireland).  So regardless of your background, enjoy!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)

Central Park – There’s an App for That!

Several years ago, I attended an information session at which the speaker was predicting the state of the workplace in 2020.  One of the things she mentioned was apps that will be available by that year, and one of my favorites was the “Where’s My Boss?” app, which one could use to locate your boss if you had to ask him or her a question.  Or maybe for some other purpose.

Anyway, now there’s an app for Central Park.  With the app, you can view a map of Central Park, explore the Park including arches, fountains, and photo opp spots, and even listen to audio narration about points of interest.  So download the app (it’s called Bloomberg Connects) in your app store and head to Central Park for a day of fun!

Feel free to leave a comment, and please come back often – I write and post often!  And if you like what I have to say and how I say it, you’ll probably enjoy my novels as well.  They’re listed below, and you can read more about them on my improved website, designed and built by my son Don, http://www.randolphmase.com.  On my site, you’ll also find excerpts of my books that you can read – please check it out!  

Randolph Mase, Fiction Writer

https://www.amazon.com/author/randolphmase

http://www.facebook.com/MatthewHoganMysteries

http://twitter.com/randolphmase

My Novels:

Death on Broadway

Death Beneath the Streets

Death in Central Park

Death at The Cloisters

Death Inside Diamond Head

Death Under Jones Beach

Death Along the Hudson (under construction)

Nathan Hale

Bibles and Bullets (in research phase)