Category Archives: Personal history

We’ll ride on the rain… we’ll worship the wind

Posted on Sunday 6 July 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

We watched Pedro Almodovar’s Law of Desire the other night, a 1987 film possibly set earlier, since there is a scene in which a famous 1960s pop song, “If You Go Away”, is sung [in Spanish] to a stage performance. … Continue reading →

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Clarke, Childhood’s End, part 2 – themes

Posted on Friday 6 June 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Last week I started my discussion of re-reading several classic Arthur C. Clarke novels, and summarized the plot of Childhood’s End, in this post. Now some comments on themes. My purpose in these rereadings is not to explore the history … Continue reading →

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Clarke, Childhood’s End, part 1

Posted on Saturday 31 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I have been re-reading several classic novels by Arthur C. Clarke, published in the 1950s and ‘60s, because they were books that I read in my formative years (i.e. ages 13 to 15), and so influenced my early thinking and … Continue reading →

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Kalam, Infinities, and Intellectual Honesty

Posted on Friday 30 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I was glancing around Adam Lee’s website and noticed his archive of foundational essays (some of which have been partially incorporated into his book). One is a very long, detailed response to the traditional arguments for the existence of God. … Continue reading →

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My Sect Is Right and Yours Is Wrong — Obviously

Posted on Friday 23 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

This Skepticblog post has a review of a book called God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States by Dr Karen Stollznow, has this opening passage: When I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, … Continue reading →

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Thoughts about Family Pics

Posted on Friday 23 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

In the past couple weeks I’ve been looking through metal boxes and plastic carousels and mail order packages of the slides I inherited from my father 10 years ago, and have the following thoughts. In my father’s days — and … Continue reading →

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Mining Family History

Posted on Monday 19 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

When my father died in 2001, I acquired his boxes of slides. The earliest were in three or four metal boxes with rows of slots that would hold two slides each. These were mostly taken from my early childhood and … Continue reading →

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Personal History, part 3 (photos)

Posted on Saturday 17 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Again before moving on, let me mine my own photo albums for relevant print photos. As I said in the first installment of this personal history, I visited England for the first time (since my birth) in 1990, and made … Continue reading →

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Personal History, Part 2

Posted on Friday 16 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

A bit more family history, as far as I can recall it, before I get to my personal memories of growing up in the high desert, and how that affected me. In Felixstowe [England, where I was born], the family … Continue reading →

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Personal History, Part 1

Posted on Wednesday 14 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

My parents were Robert Harry Kelly and Helen Elizabeth Pierce, born 1933 and 1934 respectively. They both grew up in small towns in northwestern Illinois – Cambridge and Kewanee, respectively. (This entire post, and others to follow, are advised IIRC.) … Continue reading →

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