Once Upon a Time... (original) (raw)

On the morning of May 5, 1885, in lower Manhattan, a worker fell from a building’s scaffolding to the ground. A splintered bone protruded from his bloody trousers; a plaintive wail signaled his pain; and soon he was taken from the scene by horse-drawn ambulance to Bellevue Hospital. At the hospital, in the dispensary, a young surgeon named William Stewart Halsted frantically searched the shelves for a container of cocaine.

FMI: click here.

A polar bear did him in. The biggest damned polar bear anyone had ever seen in or around Prudhoe Bay in the last twenty-five years, or so it was reported.

FMI: click here.

If Dave had known, before he’d picked up the phone, how much trouble this one call would cause, he would’ve let it go directly to voice mail.

FMI: click here.

The first thing I noticed as I was sitting in a squad car was that police cruisers don't have seatbelts in the back. Me, I'm used to traveling through life without a seatbelt. I'm a no-restraints kinda girl. But today my wrists were in handcuffs so tight I felt like a Christmas turkey, and I planned on bringing up the issue with my arresting officer.

FMI: click here.

In Fort Hood housing, like all army housing, you get used to hearing through the walls. You learn your neighbors' routines: when and if they gargle and brush their teeth; how often they go to the bathroom or shower; whether they snore or cry themselves to sleep. You learn too much. And you learn to move quietly through your own small domain.

FMI: click here.

When I imagined my funeral, this wasn't what I had in mind.

FMI: click here.

A few days after Benny's death, Ellie and Frank Benton broke into separate people.

FMI: click here.

It was the persistent sense of impending doom, not the nor'easter, that made Natalie flee from Cape Cod back to New Jersey in the predawn hours of Monday morning.

FMI: click here.

The bomb aboard the number nine tram claimed 17 lives. Sixteen were passengers.

FMI: click here.