Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog. One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government. Plunk, plunk, plunk. I can hear … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Previous parts of this biography can be found below on McHenry County Blog. I am running them again because my father would have been 105 on June 8th, if he hadn’t been a smoker. (His mother lived to be 96.) … Continue reading

Blackface – Then and Now

All the blackface stories have brought back memories from my childhood in Easton, Maryland. Easton was a segregated town of about 5,000 people where my father was chosen in an uncontested special election as President of the Town Council when … Continue reading

Censoring a 1952 Halloween Painting on a Barbershop Window in Easton, Maryland

I was reminded of how my 3rd grade teacher in Easton, Maryland, suggested my team of Halloween window painters change the sign on a wagon in a Halloween parade from “Vote for Ike” to “Vote” by a painting on a … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake Copy

Earlier segments of this biography of my father can be found below on McHenry County Blog. In 1952, my youngest sister Ellen was born. That was also the year Dad switched his registration from the Democratic Party to the Republican … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Copy

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog. One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government. Plunk, plunk, plunk. I can hear … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council Copy

Previous parts of this biography can be found below on McHenry County Blog. I am running them again because my father would have been 100 on June 8th, if he hadn’t been a smoker. (His mother lived to be 96.) … Continue reading

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs Copy

The first part of my father’s multi-part biography ran yesterday. Today, we’ll run Part 2 in honor of his birth 100 years ago. Dad graduated debt free from college in three and a half years. Somehow I have gotten the … Continue reading

Censoring a 1952 Halloween Painting on a Barbershop Window in Easton, Maryland

Censorship. Tribune reporter Bob McCoppin has written a couple of articles (the latest is here) about high school kids painting a Caribou Coffee window for Homecoming. Apparently, business window decoration is a tradition for Glenbrook North High School students. One … Continue reading

Memories of Desegregation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland – Part 2

Two counties, Talbot and Kent County, are almost next to each other, separated by Queen Anne’s County, the one into which the Chesapeake Bay Bridge has its eastern terminus. They took different paths in implementing the Supreme Court’s desegregation order. … Continue reading

Memories of Attending a Segregated School in Easton, Maryland – Part 1

I got into a conversation at the First United Methodist Church about Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad heroine from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, from when my family and I come. It bought back all sorts of memories of walking … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Earlier segments of this biography of my father can be found below on McHenry County Blog. In 1952, my youngest sister Ellen was born. That was also the year Dad switched his registration from the Democratic Party to the Republican … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog. One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government. Plunk, plunk, plunk. I can hear … Continue reading

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Previous parts of this biography can be found below on McHenry County Blog. The night I was born, June 11, 1942, my father and his Methodist minister friend Charles (Charlie) Jarvis, who baptized all three kids and, having moved to … Continue reading

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

The first part of my father’s multi-part biography ran yesterday. Today, Father’s Day, we’ll Dad graduated debt free from college in three and a half years. Somehow I have gotten the impression that he was something of a lady’s man. … Continue reading

School board Member Immigrant from Mexico Criticizes Bilingual Education

Imagine my surprise at the West Chicago school board president strongly criticizing bilingual education. When I was in first grade (the only first grade class, Miss Callahan’s) in Easton, Maryland, in 1948 two really big girls joined us after school … Continue reading