When I arrived on Anguilla in 1984, I met a man who would remain my friend until he died more than three decades later. Over the years, I watched his world gradually become smaller. Illness took its toll. Melanoma left its mark. His hearing deteriorated. Friends passed away. Travel became less frequent. The circle of […]
In 1967, Anguilla had declared independence but had almost no money. The British would not recognize the new government. The Americans would not either. Yet somehow, the revolution would mint its own currency. What Anguilla had was a referendum result of 1,813 to 5, an unshakable conviction that dignity mattered more than imperial convenience, and
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Even back in 1976, when we celebrated our Bicentennial — and I was a nineteen-year-old Navy Honor Man — I never called myself a patriot. Not because I lack love for my country. But because I grew up believing the label “patriot” is something history bestows, not something people declare about themselves. And when I
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My boss at Arthur Andersen asked me a question in 1996 right after we stepped out of an elevator at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in St. Paul. We had walked into the building behind a crowd of people, all of us piling into the elevator together. He faced the door. I faced the people.
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In 2014, something so profound happened to me that I had nowhere to go but to write David McCullough. So I did. He answered. I want to tell you why — because it has almost nothing to do with what most people think gets a letter answered. It wasn’t my credentials. I wasn’t a historian
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Yucahu (also Jocahu), Petroglyph, Th Fountain Cavern, 1985
The Island That Doesn’t Need a Smoke Monster Read More »
There are places on earth where the sky tells you something it won’t say anywhere else. Anguilla is one of them. The island sits at roughly 18 degrees north latitude — close enough to the equator that on certain nights, at certain times of year, something rare becomes visible to anyone standing on its southern
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Anguilla has now found itself touched by two revolutions in less than sixty years. The first was political. The second is technological. Both changed the island’s relationship with the world. In 1967, Anguilla rebelled against a forced political union with St. Kitts and Nevis. Men took up defensive positions along the island’s roads and coastline.
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In 1984, I was sent to Anguilla to renovate a derelict hotel. I was 27-years old. My boss handed me an envelope containing $1,400 cash, a check for $5,000, a single page brochure for something called Corito Cottages, and a plane ticket to a Caribbean island I had never heard of. I had forty-five days
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Aftermath of Hurricane Klaus, November, 1984, Sandy Ground
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