The Perfect Foot

Folks, put on your comically oversized nightcap—or pour yourself one—because this week, I have another Cinderella-esque fairy tale to read you. Since this blog is not yet available in podcast form, you’ll have to imagine my dulcet tones and/or high-pitched squeaks as you go along. Once upon a time, in the not-so-faraway land of Chicago, Read More

A Boring Page of the Gilded Age

One who reads this book through will have as rough a mental journey as his physical nature would undergo in riding over a corduroy road in an old stage-coach. It makes no pretension to either scholarship or elegant diction. – Ward McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, 1890 No, dear readers, that is not Read More

How to Get Vaccinated

By the time you read this, I expect to be shivering under a pile of blankets and sipping chicken noodle soup with a fever, chills, aches and a sore arm to boot. Happy Second Bill Gates’ Microchip Installation Day to me! I intend to celebrate in two weeks by running around and licking every doorknob Read More

The Other Pandemic

Sick and tired of worrying about coronavirus making you sick and tired? If you’ve had it with wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage, Second Glance History is happy to distract you with another horrific disease to fixate on: kyphosis bicyclistarum. You’re welcome. I’m surely not the only one consulting WebMD more frequently of late. However, while we’re bombarded Read More

Behind Enemy Lines

No matter how Andrew Valentine Farley and his three companions maneuver their boat, they’re fighting the tide, and the Confederates are gaining on them. When they initially spotted the other boat on their way back to the U.S.S. Ottawa, they assumed it was a fellow Union boat coming from Jacksonville, just north on the St. Read More

Too Much Time on Their Hands

♪ Yeah, I’m sitting by my computer, clicking like a damn fool, Got the 20th-century newspaper blues. And I’ve given up hope for an interesting headline And an amusing story. Is it any wonder I have eye strain? Is it any wonder I have carpal tunnel syndrome? ♪ Well, I’m so tired of reading—I got Read More