Kevin H Siepel's Writings
View Kevin’s Books | Read Kevin’s other writings below.
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Article
Oct.20.2010
Civil War
The crowd in the pine grove applauded as the general took his seat. A vocal segment then erupted in three cheers as a diminutive, somewhat rumpled young man rose to take his place at the podium. He smiled slightly as he nodded to his opponent, who smiled in return. The new speaker was well known in these parts.
His adversary in today's debate, ex-...
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Article
Oct.20.2010
Foreign Service Journal
Among those who have studied American history, the name of Colonel John S. Mosby conjures up an image of "Mosby's Rangers," a Confederate guerrilla band known for its highly effective harassment of Union troops during the American Civil War. Operating frequently by night and usually behind enemy lines, these rugged Southern horsemen, led by a young Virginian...
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Article
Oct.04.2010
The Buffalo News
In his book on climate change (“Cool It”), Danish environmental writer and statistician Bjorn Lomborg uses the image of a big climate knob and many smaller social policy knobs to illustrate the options we have in dealing with global warming.
Turning the “climate knob” refers to slowing climate change directly. We could do this, on the one hand, by attempting to...
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Article
Sep.14.2009
Christian Science Monitor, Readers Digest, Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul
When I first saw her in the station at St. Margrethen she was boarding the railroad car in which I sat, shoving an enormous brown leather suitcase up the high step with her knee.
Earth colors she was wearing: pants of brown corduroy, knitted vest patterned in orange and brown, Kelly green shirt with uprolled sleeves. Dark eyes, dark hair, dark complexion, young,...
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Article
Sep.14.2009
Western New York Heritage Magazine
Ever since I was 14, when my father first took me to walk the field at Gettysburg, I've felt the lure of the past. I've been struck by the fact that, while distant from the past, I'm nonetheless connected to it. Like becoming aware that, even though San Francisco is three time zones away from my home in Western New York, I'm connected to that distant place by a...
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Article
Sep.11.2009
WordWorth.com
My wife was the one who’d wanted the puppies. She’s the one who pushed to have our cocker spaniel, Violet, bred. I went along with it. Thought it might be fun. We had Violet bred in early May, and by mid-July we had eight purebred cocker pups on our hands—seven females and one male, some black, some parti-colored, one buff.
I’d been...
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Article
Sep.11.2009
WordWorth.com
From 1946 through 1951, my father, a former beer-truck driver, served as a children’s summer-camp director. Over the course of a summer the camp saw two groups of girls and three of boys. Two hundred kids at a time, a new crop every two weeks. The camp was owned by the Church. The campers were underprivileged children, as they were called...
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Article
Sep.11.2009
WordWorth.com
A few summers ago I attended a tent circus in my small western New York town. It was the Carson & Barnes circus, of Hugo, Oklahoma, and in addition to being pretty entertaining, it got me rethinking one of Life’s Important Questions. But before I get into that, a word about the circus itself.
Billed as the world’s largest tent circus, Carson...
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Poem
Sep.11.2009
Summerfield Journal
I, citizen of clean suburb, goggled
and masked commuter, molded finally by
plastic and acceleration, started
life a simple gatherer of eggs.
Daily I advanced, little thief-boy of
six, upon a dozen crotchety hens
to take treasure for our table. Hot bulk
of fresh egg in palm, pungency of manure
and mildewed wood and damp shavings. I remember.
At twelve, a...
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Poem
Sep.11.2009
Summerfield Journal
It's the third anniversary of my
father's death. I sometimes dream, like one
too long neglected by a familiar
correspondent, that he'll write, or even come
home soon from his trip. As though nothing much
had passed, take his place in the big rocker,
work his Sunday crossword, do the Reader's
Digest, lay his glasses down to lift a
grandchild to his lap, talk with...
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About Kevin
Kevin H Siepel writes on personal, historical, and scientific themes. His benchmark biography of Confederate hero John Singleton Mosby has proven durable, as have a number of his essays and poems. He has been published in the Christian Science Monitor,...