Welcome to the Playground.
Before the year flickers away entirely, we’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year. 2025 was a year of constant development—of shared ideas, shared stories. There are far too many writers on Substack we’d personally like to thank for helping make this publication a success. But the fun won’t stop here. A new year brings new projects, all designed to make your experience even more engaging.
We’re proud to introduce AUTHOR ARENA.
More details coming soon.
It’s not all doom and gloom here. The Playground is a place we can learn about various writers. A great example of this is what we found when our visitors to this SUBSTACK NOTE.
We’ve cherry-picked the most interesting comments.
Leather bound flight diary of our father’s 64 combat missions in WWII as a B-25 crewman 1942-43
The best thing I did with Mom’s military items was donate them to her hometown historical society. Towns like to know about their veterans and welcome anything to be shared.
It’s nice to have these things but better to share them.
Natural: Fossils and rocks.
Man made: stone tools 5-8k years old.
Radiation from the big bang!
I have a Pittsburgh (minus the “h”) news paper from Jan 1st 1854.
The apron I made in 7th grade in home economics class.. it’s green and white stripe with a pocket with a letter b. Early 1980s
The crust in my underwear.
I believe it’s my dish made in Prussia. Not sure when Prussia stopped being a country. I’ll look it up.
Chunk of gneiss, 4.03 billion years old
Multiple Iron Skillets or butter mold, for sure
Some at least twice my age (skillets) and I’m a spry young lad at 64
A first century Roman ring.
A book “The Lady’s Companion” 18th Century
My grandmother‘s refrigerator from 1929.
Well, actually, I have a Roman coin from Constantine the thirds reign.
I have a colander from my great grandmother. Not sure how old it is, but well over a hundred years old.
A pitcher and set of six glasses that belonged to my great grandmother. Circa 1800’s
A book that is printed on title page 1804,
Probably this piece of cross stitch by Emma Cornish - a distant ancestor - dated 25th April, 1882. I might have some family bibles in the loft that are a bit older.
My Father in laws clip of hair when he was a baby, or a piece of gold saved from someone’s teeth. Or maybe something from the Civil War.
A silver bread basket engraved with the monograms of several of the women in my family…the most recent one added was my great-great-grandmother’s, sometime in the late 1800’s, so it was probably crafted early in that century
Windsor chairs Thomas Jefferson probably sat it
Not sure, but I have a bible from the late 1800s.
Well, I do have an old edition of Hegel’s 1827 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.
I’m generally not an antiques person but I splurged on an Edo period (~1850) ink painting of Guinyin.
Trilobite. It is anywhere between 358 and 486 million years old.
