By Gary Topping– (Editor’s note: It’s lake monster week on The Boy Monk blog. On Monday, Mike O’Brien blogged about his admiration for an 1868 report about the Bear Lake…

(Editor’s note: Yesterday Mike O’Brien wrote about his admiration for Joseph Rich’s 152 year old report on the Bear Lake monster (see: https://theboymonk.com/my-152-years-of-never-seeing-the-bear-lake-monster/). Today, the original Rich letter from the…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My family loves me, but never hesitates to remind me about my many defects. A commonly-discussed flaw is my innate inability to spot most of the…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I often have thought it might be cool to live in a named era…maybe something like the Age of Aquarius, the Roaring Twenties, or La Belle…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Years ago, I watched the 1939 movie version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was entranced when Quasimodo (Charles Laughton) flew into the Cathedral square,…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I knew the Utah Trappist monks who lived at the monastery in Huntsville until 2017 quite well. Yet, despite those years of friendship, I understood little…

By Gary Topping– The poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has not fared well at the hands of the literary critics.  My dad, who was not a literary critic, got onto…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– “Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of…Israel Bissell.” Wait a minute; those are not the opening words of the famous epic…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I have so much love for my neighbors that I am sorely tempted to commit an act of extreme and violent vandalism on the front yard…

By Jathan Janove– Bruce Cutright is Vice President of Human Resources & Administration for Mary Lanning Healthcare, a Nebraska hospital with over 1,200 employees. When he took the position, according…