2025 in Helytimes
Posted: December 31, 2025 Filed under: America Since 1945, railroads and restaurants, southern california lunch, the California Condition, writerlore 1 Comment
Writers should stagger end of year posts, some people should do theirs in July so January isn’t a flood of the same content. Maybe next year!
How did Jimmy Carter, Dick Cheney, John Thune and Ronald Reagan get and administer power?
What was it like to be around Abe Lincoln?
What was the experience of a Civil War battle actually like?
What was Hemingway thinking with Across the River and Into the Trees?
If Kansas City isn’t cool, why are there a bunch of songs about it?
Which is better, the song “Islands in the Stream” or the posthumous novel of that title?
How did the house of Savoy go from Charlamagne-era minor dukes to kings of Italy, and how did they lose it?
What can Matthew McConaughey, Paul Cezanne, Bruce Springsteen, Henry Adams and Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves teach us?
Why is the NFL so dominant?
Questions that were on our mind this year, we went diving and whatever shells we found and brought to surface we present here.
Some selections from 2025:
He was on our mind going through 2024-25.
On the LA fires.
An important Reagan advisor and California political figure.
- Living Room on the tracks
- Lincoln in New Orleans (featuring final answer on was Abraham Lincoln gay?)
a review of Richard Campanella’s incredible book on the topic
Texas wines are fun and good!
On Carter’s, the kids clothing brand, their history as a window into economic history.
a catchy song.
some amazing lore from Charles Goodnight.
A deep dive on a Civil War mystery
why is Chili’s crushing it? Railroads and Restaurants is a newsletter I mean to start, it’ll cost $500 a year.
the secret of power
If my goal were to generate the most views, I’d split this site into two: one would be advice adjacent stuff about writing, Writerlore, the other would be Warren Buffett/Charlie Munger Deep Cuts. That’s what gets eyeballs.
sad death of a beloved general. The War of the Rebellion was on my mind, especially real “you are there” moments
Two Louisianans
gratifying reception to Common Side Effects
The most vivid book I can remember reading
looking into the origin of a phrase
Savoy in history and myth was a theme this year
Did some deep cut Hemingway reading this year
This piece probably took me the longest, but seemed to generate zero interest
research with LLMs into a mythical beer
a memorable Southern California lunch, November 1826. Southern California Lunch would be another good spinoff.
how deep can we go into one painting
Homage to a Yankee
which is better, book or song?
been meaning to follow up
Review of some biographies of Ernest Hemingway
some Juneetenth trivia
dispatch from Greenpoint, NY
genuine
a journey in etymology
strangely popular, not sure why
advice from the movie star-philosopher
what was Columbus’s goal, really?
Hollywood forever.
glimpses from New England
origin of Woody Allen’s famous 80% of life is showing up quote
a musical transmission through time
a Midwest character and a northeasterner
another Midwest character and a northeasterner
scraps from a master and fellow scatterbrain.
used Perplexity to teach me to write a Python script to index every post. It worked?
Truman loved a drink
The death of the most powerful Vice President in US history prompts a look at his rise.
on the invasive cow of early California
views of growth
Charlie Parker and California’s mental asylums
some samples of the kind of columnist who doesn’t really exist anymore.
one investigation leads to another
a mysterious power broker from the Dakotas.
More on Starkweather
Kansas City in story, song, and reality
dive into a rising fast food chain
literary anecdote is catnip for readers
a minor Anglo-Irish family through the generations
how jokes enter history as facts.
football: why is it so great? This one generated a lot of positive feedback
a spooky Christmas song
how to learn about the Jefferson era
are we spoilt brats?
a Christmas miracle from Whitney Houston, Jimmy Iovine, Rick Rubin
were all the revolutionaries criminals? was the American Revolution just like The Town or The Departed? An alliance of Boston and Virginia mobs?
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