Stories Worth Spinning

Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico are major players in the American oil industry, with huge reserves and plenty of oil rigs. You might logically assume, then, that the first commercial oil well in the United States was drilled somewhere in the Lone Star State, the Sooner State, or the Land of Enchantment. It wasn’t. The first commercial oil well was drilled in 1859 by Edwin Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania. Known as Drake’s Well, it helped launch the American petroleum industry. So, this story is about Drake. It’s not. It’s about Gus. Robert Augustus “Gus” Chesebrough was a Brooklyn-born chemist. While visiting the Pennsylvania oil fields, he became interested in  a  strange bi-product turning up around the new drilling operations. It was a gooey substance the oil workers called rod wax. The roughnecks were using it on cuts, burns, and irritated skin. Gus saw possibilities. He brought some of the stuff back to Brooklyn, where he began experimenting with it...

  During a recent house cleaning, my wife found a new home for two paper grocery bags stuffed with crepe paper rolls. They were unused surplus decorations from birthday parties and family celebrations. With our kids now all adults spread out across six states, we no longer had a use for them. While there is still a market for crepe paper, its everyday utility has evolved, and crinkled tissue paper is far less common today than it once was. The woman who eagerly took them off our hands described herself as "into crafts." While crepe paper might seem like a simple, humble material on the surface, it boasts a surprisingly rich history.   The creping process—crinkling paper to introduce elasticity—was first developed in the late 19th century for wound care. Before the advent of modern elastic bandages, crepe paper provided a flexible, breathable alternative. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, manufacturers produced bandages using creped paper because they offered slig...

                                                                                                    This is the city. Chicago, Illinois. A place where people work hard, save their money, and trust their banks. But trust has a way of being broken. The story you’re about to read is true. The names and places are real. People trust their bankers with their money, their futures, their lives—but not all bankers are worthy of that trust. And the consequences—lives ruined, faith broken—speak louder than the just facts, mam. There are many stories like this—tales of banking crimes, fraud, and deception. Some make the front pages; others vanish into the footnotes of financial history. What follows is just one of them. This is the story of A Fie...

    August Goetz opened his own candy company in Baltimore, Maryland in 1894. His unique time-tested recipes have remained unchanged for 130 years and  the company’s flagship products are still made "altmodisch” - in the old fashioned way using traditional m ethods.   The V-Mail (Victory Mail) program was a wartime program implemented by the U.S. government   to streamline and expedite mail delivery to and from military personnel. Introduced in 1942, the V-Mail system was designed to address the logistical challenges and resource constraints of wartime mail. Here is how it worked, Instead of sending physical letters, individuals wrote on special   5 x 7 inch V-Mail stationery. These letters were then sent to a central processing facility. At the processing facility, the handwritten letters were photographed and converted into microfilm significantly reducing   mail volume. The microfilm rolls were sent via air or by sea to the recipient's l...

                                                                                                                                       A typical physical therapy appointment lasts 45 to 60 minutes. The therapist reviews your progress, checks your range of motion and strength, and guides you through exercises designed to improve flexibility, balance, and walking. Hands-on techniques may also be used to reduce pain and stiffness. Before you leave, you will receive instructions for exercises to continue at home between appointments.   Chances are good that many of my blog readers have experienced physical therapy at some point in their lives. Whil...

  There are some places from childhood that never really leave you.   They may not have been famous. They may not have appeared on any tourist map. They may have been nothing more than a place you passed on an ordinary afternoon.   But years later, something brings them back.   For me, one of those places was a little hand pump in Schiller Woods on Chicago's Northwest Side.   More than fifty years ago, my friend John and I made our way there. We weren't looking for an adventure. We were on an errand.   John's family was Polish, and like many Polish families in the area, they had heard about the water that flowed from an old pump in the woods.   They believed it was special.   So we brought along three Jerry cans and filled them with water.   I don't remember thinking much about it at the time. It was simply something we did.   But looking back, I realize that the pump represented something much la...

                                                                                 Susan Miller. Nothing special. Or so it would seem. Susan Miller appears like any other entry in a diary of ordinary lives. Familiar. Effortless. A name that rolls off the tongue without hesitation, correction, or explanation. The kind of name that barely raises an eyebrow, much less curiosity. And there are many who envy such names.   While Susan Miller glides through conversation like a canoe on calm water, others must navigate rapids—currents of hesitation, eddies of mispronunciation, and hidden rocks of assumption. By the time they reach the far shore, the journey has already shaped how they are perceived. But all names carry baggage. They cast shadows and often speak before we do. Consider Samuel...