Fort Frederick, Maryland

Built in 1756, Fort Frederick is one of the oldest stone forts in the continental United States. It was constructed while Maryland was still a colony and served to protect settlers on what was then the frontier of the British settlements. The fort was named after Frederick Calvert, Sixth Baron Baltimore, who never set foot on American soil. Ruling through appointed governors, Calvert's only interest was the income the colony provided. Governor Horatio Sharpe had the fort built. Most forts at the time were built of wood. As a result, they were easily burned to the ground by hostiles (in the 1750s, that meant the French and/or the Indians). A stone fort was much more expensive but it was definitely worth the investment. The fort was designed to safeguard local colonists during military raids, with plenty of room inside. Two barracks were built to house soldiers, another as the Governor's House (though no governor stayed there). It was more likely the officers' quarters.

Fort Frederick

Not far from the fort is a visitor center which explains the three hundred year history of the fort. Originally built during the French and Indian War period, it served during the American War for Independence as a prisoner-of-war camp for British soldiers. A lot of artifacts have been found and are on display, along with recreations of some of the residents.

Making peace with the locals

Typical staff at the fort

Crockery, buckles, buttons, etc.

A typical soldier's kit

Metal artifacts found at the fort

The design follows the star fort style popular at the time. The corners of the fort have protruding bastions on which soldiers and guns could be stationed. The design let them shoot at any opponents that got close to the walls and enabled crossfire. The only gate is in the middle of the south wall.

The design of the fort

Walking up to the gate

The only way in

We visited over Memorial Day weekend, so docents were dressed up in their 18th century finest and told us a lot about the fort. One anecdote was about the families who took shelter in the fort. They would put small holes in the wall to have a rod sticking out over which a tent tarp could be laid or a pot could be hung over a fire. One section of the wall had a hole smashed out for cannon to shoot through. Those were subsequently repaired.

The black outline shows were a large hole was put in the wall

Each of the curtain walls are about 180 feet long and 18 feet high. They were not designed to withstand cannonfire because they assumed the French could not bring large artillery pieces to the area (which was a correct assumption). They were not designed for soldiers to walk along, so dirt was used to build up a walkway along the edge. That's all gone now, though a staircase shows another way to get to the top of the walls and look out.

Closed!

The bastions had dirt ramps on the sides to get up to the top. One bastion was full of dirt, with a hollowed-out storage compartment to protect ordinance from any over-the-wall incendiaries. They are all cleaned out now.

The bastion today

Bastion with a flag and two docents

The barracks were designed to house around two hundred soldiers each, with some women as laundresses. Keeping your clothes clean was very important back then, with disease and insects spreading quickly if unchecked. The women also cooked and did other duties as assigned.

Recreated barracks

The other recreated barracks

Inside one of the buildings, we chatted with re-eanctors who talked about the lives of the soldiers in the 1700s. 

A day in the life, long ago

Two to a bunk was the rule

Recreated uniforms

Re-enactors' outfits

View to the other barracks from upstairs

The governor's house has not been rebuilt yet but the foundation is laid out in stone. The fort was sold at auction by the fledgling United States in 1791. The grounds were eventually bought by a former slave and used as farmland before the American Civil War. During that war, the fort was re-occupied to defend the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the railroad that ran alongside the canal (both of which came after the fort was sold). The land was returned to its owner and the fort went into decline.

In the 1920s, the state government bought the land to make a state park. The walls had crumbled or were "harvested" for other local building projects. During Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps came and restored the walls and cleaned up the area. One of the CCC building is still there and serves as a small museum.

CCC building

A 1930s-style desk

Typical dining in the CCC days

Entertainment and snacks available for the workers

The CCC snack bar pointed us back to Captain Wort's Sutler Shop, the place serving snacks and brik-a-brac to visitors today. We took the kids over for a treat.

Other support buildings

Kids on the porch enjoying a snack

The grounds extend to the canal and the Potomac River. We didn't go down there. My wife remembered camping with our daughter and her American Heritage Girls troop a long time ago down by the river. It's a beautiful area and well worth visiting.

Book Review: Daredevil: Yellow by J. Loeb and T. Sale

Daredevil: Yellow storytelling by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

After Karen Page's death, Matt Murdock decides (on Foggy Nelson's advice) to write her a letter explaining how he feels about the situation. The writing is a way to deal with his love of her and his guilt over her death. He goes back to the beginning, which means starting with the death of his own father while Matt was in law school. Jack Murdock was a boxer whose career had a sudden revival with a string of knockouts. Jack's new manager is nicknamed "The Fixer," which turns out to be exactly what it implies. When they get to the fight where Jack is supposed to take a dive instead of his opponent, Jack refuses. The Fixer is upset because Jack wasn't following orders and his wider crime-world connections are unhappy too. Matt, while working hard at his Columbia Law School studies, has also been working hard on his fighting skills. When his dad is killed and the justice system lets the killers go free, Matt goes to his dad's trunk, going through his fighting gear (which includes a yellow robe), and makes his first Daredevil suit out of it. Then he goes to avenge his dad. Meanwhile, he and Foggy have finished law school and open their own practice, hiring Karen Page, who becomes a catalyst for romantic drama between the two lawyers.

Loeb and Sale are a great team, crafting masterpieces like Batman: The Long Halloween. They make a great origin story for Daredevil, incorporating all the classic bits while giving the story more depth and emotion. They have the law firm though courtroom scenes are kept to a minimum. Daredevil has some awkward integration with other Manhattan superheroes and villains. When the Fantastic Four show up at the law firm, have they figured out Matt's secret identity or do they really just need legal help with Reed's patents? The fight scenes are not the main focus but are interesting and do connect to larger themes and narratives. As Matt reminiscences, the seemingly scattershot details fit together as a whole, providing more insight into his personality. 

Recommended, highly for Daredevil fans. 

Movie Review: Newsies (1992)

Newsies (1992) directed by Kenny Ortega

In 1899, the New York City newspaper scene is dominated by publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. But they are dependent on their distribution network, which comes down to the Newsies, the boys and young men who sell the newspapers on street corners, at events, and anywhere they can. Of course, the publishers have no respect for the Newsies. In a bid to make more money, Pulitzer (Robert Duvall) decides to up the newspaper prices on the boys. They buy the papers at half price and sell them for a penny, keeping any profits and eating the cost of any papers they don't sell. A ten percent increase isn't a lot but it is. The Newsies already have a hardscrabble life, including Jack Kelly (Christian Bale), who wants to make enough money to move out west where he tells the other boys that his parents have gone. He has been in and out of the Refuge, a reform school that's more of a prison. Jack befriends newcomer David (David Moscow) just as the price inflation hits. They decide to strike, though David is more the brains behind what to say and Jack is the flamboyant mouthpiece rallying the troops. For the strike to be successful, they need to enlist other Newsies from other papers, to keep their story visible (thanks to a reporter (Bill Pullman) for a rival paper), and to avoid getting arrested by the cops.

The movie is a fun musical with a lot of dance numbers, almost all of which are the Newsies dancing. The numbers have a lot of energy and enthusiasm. The songs are nice but not great and the plot follows a familiar arc. Bale is very charming and anchors the show. The rest of the cast is good but not outstanding. Duvall's character is a bit underdeveloped, leaving him as more of a generic bad guy. The filmmakers could easily have switched to calling him William Randolph Hearst (who only appears for less than a minute at a poker game in the middle of the film) and nothing else would change. A love interest for Jack, David's sister Sarah (Ele Keats), is tacked on to give Jack a little extra motivation and a kiss at the end. She could have been dropped from the story and all that would be lost is some of the run time. That said, it is enjoyable and an interesting story.

Mildly recommended.

TV Review: Legends (2026)

Legends (2026) created by Neil Forsyth based on The Betrayer: How An Undercover Unit Infiltrated The Global Drug Trade by Guy Stanton and Peter Walsh

In the early 1990s, Margaret Thatcher's government wanted to step up drug enforcement, especially with the deaths of two young people that played prominently in news coverage. The job falls to Customs House, which keeps an eye on stuff and people coming into the United Kingdom. Specifically, the project is given to Don (Steve Coogan), a higher up who has had experience going undercover to expose criminal operations. His first problem is that no one in Customs has any training in undercover work. He puts out an internal advert and has to whittle down interested employees (who know no details about what they will be doing). He winds up with four agents. Guy (Tom Burke) is a family man who is bored with his regular job but doesn't want to endanger his family. He works alone, infiltrating a Turkish crime family bringing in heroin. Kate (Hayley Squires) and Bailey (Aml Ameen) work together to infiltrate the Liverpool distribution system. Erin (Jamine Blackborow) works behind the scenes supporting their cover stories (called "Legends" by Don) and tracking down license plates, companies, people, and any other information needed. The system is volatile since the field workers quite often make it up as they go along, leading to a lot of harrowing situations.

The show moves at a brisk pace but it also keeps things grounded and the characters' problems (professional and personal) in focus. The cast is very good, portraying bravado and vulnerability. Some bits at the end are "big speeches" about themselves and the importance of their work. By that point in the story, they feel justified. The complications that arise make for exciting drama. The show is very satisfying.

Highly recommended.

As I write this (June 2026), this is only available streaming from Netflix.

Book Review: Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

Joe Leaphorn is a detective with the Navajo Tribal Police. His latest case involves two missing Native American boys. Ernesto Cata was preparing for a Zuni tribal ceremony, the other boy was his good friend George Bowlegs, a Navajo. A large pool of blood leaves little to the imagination of Leaphorn, whose investigation takes him through a lot of the local culture, both Zuni and Navajo. He also deals with an archeologist on the verge of discovering amazing things about the people who lived on the reservation thousands of years ago. His investigation takes him to an oddball hippie commune too. Trying to discover what happened and if there is a culprit involved is a twisty road for Leaphorn.

The book provides an interesting enough mystery but really shines in its depiction of Native American culture, with the sort of detail rarely found in fiction books (or maybe I just read the wrong books). Hillerman weaves it deftly into the plot. With the Navajo boy wanting to be part of the Zuni tribe, the religious ceremonies and beliefs for both are described and are part of the crime. I was almost more interested in that than the mystery. Leaphorn is an interesting if typical investigator--a bit world-weary and jaded, but with enough honesty and integrity to see that justice is done.

Mildly recommended.

This is discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find episode #380. Check it out!

Cute Kid Pix May 2026

More photos that didn't make their own post...

To celebrate Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, we made Wookie Cookies, which are basically Rice Krispy treats with Cocoa Krispies subbed in, along with a chocolate icing stripe and white jimmies to make Chewbacca's bandolier. We had a few challenges. First, the recipe says to make a sheet of cookie and then use a gingerbread-man cookie cutter to cut out the Wookie shapes. We have a plastic cookie cutter that's a bit shallow, so making the cuts was very hard. Then, I couldn't find white jimmies by themselves at the store, so I had to buy a rainbow sprinkles pack and take out all the long white sprinkles I could from the mix. The recipe calls for melting chocolate chips in a plastic bag and piping the bandoliers but I saw a squeezable icing packet at the store and bought that to save some work.

All the effort was worth the result, though I probably won't go through all that effort again.

Plate of Wookie cookies

A lone Wookie

We bid on a silent auction item for a Gabriel Network fundraiser and won a basket from Mission BBQ, which included a bottle of Cheerwine. It's not actually wine, it's a cherry-flavored cola that was tasty. We also used the steak-and-beef seasoning for hamburgers and liked it a lot. 

Spoils of donation

My daughter received some awards for her robotics work at school. The Howard County executive hosted a big congratulations event at a local outdoor concert venue. They had free food for attendees but only our daughter braved the lines to get some nachos.

Her robotics team

Another group photo

We were shocked to see her little brother's school get an award, but only because the mascot on the jumbotron was wrong! His school has a bulldog mascot, not a knight! They mixed up Patapsco Middle School with Patuxent Valley Middle School. I'm sure they'll blame AI.

Maybe there's a dog inside the armor?

For Mother's Day, we made basket tacos for dinner (Mom did not want to fight crowds at a restaurant). It was a fun project but a lot more work (two hours of effort) than the results justified. We enjoyed the tacos but, like the Wookie cookies, we probably won't make this recipe again.

Prepping tortillas

Prepping fillings

Making guacamole

Getting the finished product out of the slow cooker

Tasty but costly

My wife and I did a quick road trip thanks to a spontaneous holiday granted by her work. We went found a string of geocaches. We targeted caches that are part of a 250th Anniversary of of the United States geo-tour. I 

A tricky hide!

Rural Heritage Museum buildings

The coin and me

Celebratory lunch at RAK Brewing

Over Memorial Day weekend we took the kids out west to see Fort Frederick (which will get its own post). On the way we stopped at South Mountain Creamery to have an ice cream snack and visit the cows.

Dirt Road ice cream!

Getting licked

My youngest had his Spring Concert which was fun.

Ready to play

We tried out a local mini-golf course that was a little bit frustrating. The holes are generic and themeless, with a lot of weird hills and slopes that make shots difficult. Others enjoyed it more than I did.

Getting ready

Uphill battle

Decorative stones along the course