Mark Twain On New Year's Day

 

From the Editors: Looking Back At A Landmark Year For Broad + Liberty

I’m proud to be a contributor to Broad + Liberty. 

My Crime Beat column appears on the Broad + Liberty and Philly Daily websites each week.

As the editors noted, it’s been a remarkable year at Broad +Liberty. 

You can read the year-end piece by the editors via the below link or the following text:

 From the Editors: Looking back at a landmark year for Broad + Liberty

It’s been a remarkable year at Broad +Liberty. 

We published over 900 original pieces covering wide-ranging topics from scandals in the Shapiro administration, county politics, education, culture and healthcare.

Our investigative reporting by Todd Shepherd garnered state and national attention. The Pennsylvania News Media Association awarded Shepherd the “Best in Investigative Journalism” for his work exposing incompetence and poor management at the Delaware County prison. 

Nationally, the Atlantic cited Shepherd’s work in its lengthy piece on Governor Josh Shapiro. Broad + Liberty broke the news about a sexual harassment scandal involving one of Shapiro’s top aides back in 2023. Shepherd continues to uncover more concerning facts around the incident including deleted email accounts that run contrary to the state’s own policy.

Whether reporting on excessive county tax increases, questionable spending by school districts or political endorsements and campaign donations, Shepherd’s investigative journalism is making a significant impact at the local, state, and national level. Shepherd's work is complemented by additional reporting and informed opinion pieces from our staff, including Kyle Sammin, Brad Vasoli, and Beth Ann Rosica.

We are also proud to publish regular contributions from Guy Ciarrocchi, Thom Nickels, Ben Mannes, Christine Flowers, Paul Davis, and Seth Higgins, in addition to submissions from private citizens and elected officials that the mainstream media would likely ignore. Broad + Liberty fulfills its mission every week by giving voice to issues and ideas that have been shut out of our public discourse for too long.

This year, Broad + Liberty founded The Bucks County Independence in May and The Lancaster County Independence in August. These new sites deliver thoughtful and rigorous journalism on the local level and have each broken numerous hard-hitting stories. Bucks Independence readers were the first to read about recently retired Falls Township Supervisor Jeff Boraski’s payment of most of his campaign funds to himself as “reimbursements,” the latest development in an ongoing fundraising scandal with countywide implications. The Lancaster County Independence provided trenchant coverage of county budget deliberations and broke a story about a controversial potential challenger to Republican State Representative Steven Mentzer.

It’s interesting to look back and reflect upon which stories earned the most attention. It is often surprising to us which pieces do well and which ones don’t seem to get many clicks. Perhaps it’s timing or getting picked up by an aggregator, but ultimately we can never predict the popularity — or lack thereof  — of a story.

As we would expect, our regular writers captured the top ten list this year, but the pieces that made it were sometimes not anticipated.

To cap off the year, here, in order, are Broad + Liberty’s top ten stories in 2025.

1.     Federal probe launched into Unionville-Chadds Ford School District after parent complaints by Beth Ann Rosica

2.     Pandemic policies sparked a transgender spike and the reversal has begun by Beth Ann Rosica

3.     Philly school district spent at least $309,000 sending staff to local union conference despite travel policy by Todd Shepherd

4.     Shapiro admin can’t locate key emails in sexual harassment case – “zero emails on the server……. is preposterous” by Todd Shepherd 

5.     How northern Pennsylvania is being left behind by Seth Higgins

6.     Philly DA Krasner receives endorsement from democratic ward leader convicted of sex offenses against a minor by Todd Shepherd

7.     Chesco bureaucrats end hot meals for needy West Chester families by Beth Ann Rosica

8.     Ideology over justice – how Larry Krasner’s policies failed Kada Scott by Ben Mannes

9.     Emails show questionable collusion between Krasner and PAC donors by Ben Mannes

10. $164k for a Chief Experience Officer? Chester County finds new ways to spend your money by Guy Ciarrocchi

The past year underscores Broad + Liberty’s growing role in Pennsylvania’s public conversation.

From the founding of our republic, the health of our civic life has rested upon a simple but profound truth: a free and independent press is not merely a feature of democracy — it is one of its chief guarantors. As the only industry explicitly contemplated in the Constitution, the framers understood that liberty is not self-perpetuating; it must be renewed through informed citizens, accountable institutions, and a shared commitment to truth that transcends partisan preferences.

We at Broad + Liberty are stewards of a tradition that predates us and will outlast us if we tend to it faithfully. The press is, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, the “chief democratic instrument of freedom”— a moral instrument for the advancement of the public good.

In other words, strong communities are built when government is accountable, enterprise is encouraged, innovation is dynamic, and individuals embrace their God-given responsibility for themselves and their neighbors. This is a social compact that is strengthened when we are at our best.

As 2025 comes to a close, Broad + Liberty is excited for what 2026 has in store. Our team is ready to break the stories, report the news, and help our readers make sense of what is happening locally, across the state, and in the country.

We are incredibly grateful to our loyal readers who click on our website daily and to those who continue to support our work financially.

As Broad + Liberty expands and grows, our commitment to freedom of thought remains paramount, and we promise to bring more diverse voices to our pages.

Thank you for your support and Happy New Year! 

Hemingway On Giving Advice

My Philly Daily Crime Beat Column: Give Up The Food And Other South Philly Stories

Philly Daily ran my Crime Beat column on South Philly stories:

You can read the column via the below link of the following text:

Davis: Give up the food, and other South Philly stories - Philly Daily 

Perhaps only in South Philly.

Late one evening last month, a delivery driver for a South Philly pizza shop was delivering a pizza on Wharton Street.

The driver stepped out of his car, pizza box in hand, and he looked for the address of the home that called for the pizza. The driver saw a woman and a man, and he asked them if they knew where the particular address was located.

The woman said the pizza was hers and took the box from the delivery man. She turned and walked away without paying for the pizza. Her male companion brandished a gun and told the delivery driver to “Give up the food.”

The couple then began to run down Wharton Street, the pizza box in the woman’s hand. The couple didn’t attempt to rob the delivery driver of his money, watch or phone. They were apparently satisfied with simply stealing the pizza. They must have been hungry.

Over the years that I’ve covered the crime beat in Philadelphia, I’ve gone out on many a ride along all over the city with Philadelphia police officers, but it seems that the most interesting and amusing occurrences all occurred in South Philadelphia where I grew up and continue to live.

I recall some years ago while riding with a 3^rd district patrol officer, we came upon a man who had chased away a would-be car break-in thief. From his house front window, the potential victim saw the young thief attempting to break into his car. The man ran out of his house with a baseball bat, and the thief took off so fast, he ran right out of his untied sneakers.

The police officer took down the information for his report from the victim and the victim picked up the discarded sneakers and brought them into his house.  Afterwards the cop had a good laugh as we sat in his patrol car.

The cop told me that the sneakers the thief had left behind on the sidewalk were expensive. According to the cop, the sneakers were much more valuable than anything he could have stolen from the parked car.

I also recall a Philly cop telling me about his stern sergeant during an earlier Christmas season. The cop was walking a beat on South Street on a very cold and windy Christmas Eve. His sergeant ordered the cop to stay visible on the street and not hang out in a store, sucking up heat, coffee and merriment.

Of course, the cop quickly escaped the bitter wind and cold and stepped into a shoe store for hot chocolate and conversation with the store owner and customers.

When the cop looked out through the store window and saw his sergeant car rolling down South Street, he stepped out and stood in front of the store, shivering.

“Have you been hanging out in the store?" his sergeant asked.

No, the cop replied. “Although it is really cold out here, Sarge."

His sergeant then placed his bare hand on the cop’s badge and found the metal to be nearly as warm as the hot chocolate in the beat cop’s stomach.

The police officer later told me and every cop he knew, "Do you believe it? He chewed me out on Christmas Eve!"

On another Christmas Eve some years ago, another cop told me about a young, overeager officer who busted Santa.

A driver, dressed as Santa Claus in a red suit, fake belly and a false white beard performed what is known locally as “the South Philly Roll,” which is a deliberate failure to fully stop at a stop sign or traffic light. 

The serious-minded officer pulled over the man dressed as Santa. The driver, who admittedly had a few shots of whisky, rolled down his window and yelled out “Ho, Ho. Ho, Merry Christmas!” to the officer.

The officer was neither merry nor amused. He made the driver step out of the car. 

A crowd gathered on the street and watched the officer interacting with Santa. The crowd was aghast. One bystander full of holiday spirit – both faith-based and liquid no doubt – called out to the officer, “Hey Officer Grinch! Leave Santa alone.”

Had this event happened today, the encounter would have been recorded on a dozen phones, and the video would have gone viral, as they say, with millions of people viewing it.

The young officer’s sergeant happened to drive by, and he parked and got out of his patrol car. The sergeant took over from the young officer and let Santa off with a warning, and a hearty wish for a Merry Christmas

Paul Davis’s Crime Beat column appears here weekly. He is also a frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com. 

Merry Christmas 2025

 

The Crime Before Christmas: My Interview With Santa Claus

Philly Daily, where my Crime Beat column appears each week, ran my interview with Santa.

You can read the interview via the below link or the following text:

Davis: The crime before Christmas — my interview with Santa Claus - Philly Daily

As a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I was compelled to look into a report of a burglary of an unemployed construction worker on Christmas Eve in South Philadelphia.

The burglar or burglars broke into the home early on the morning of the 24th. They stole the family’s TV and other household goods. They also took a dozen or so wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree that were intended for the family’s two children.

I interviewed the victim, who was so devastated by the burglary that he could hardly speak. I also spoke to a detective who said he presently had no leads on the case, but he planned to keep working it. I also spoke to a local priest who told me that the church was collecting donations for the poor family.

Lastly, I spoke to a man of great wisdom and experience. The jolly old fella was kind enough to pause during his special night out to talk to me about crime.

I interviewed Santa Claus as he was packing up his sleigh and getting ready to head off on his magical trip, bringing toys and goodies to good children around the world.

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow and the beard on his chin was white as snow. His eyes twinkled and his dimples were merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. He looked like a candidate for a heart attack.

And he smoked. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth and the smoke encircled his head like a wreath (the Surgeon General would not approve). He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot (PETA would not approve) and his clothes were tarnished with ashes and soot (Mrs. Santa would not approve). With a lumpy sack over his shoulder, he looked like a homeless person.

I asked Santa Claus if the public’s fear of crime had changed how he did his job.

“The increased use of car and home burglar alarms makes my journey tougher, I must say,” Santa told me. “As you know, my miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer make such a clatter, they set off every car alarm on the block.”

Santa also said that home burglar alarms has made his surreptitious entry, via the fireplace, most difficult. When he slides down the chimney, he sets off alarms, which wakes the household and brings the police. 

Santa went on to say that the alarms ruin the surprise for the children, and he is often detained by the responding police officers, who demand identification and administer alcohol tests.

Fortunately, Santa looks like a right jolly old elf, so the police officers have to laugh, in spite of themselves. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head give the people who thought they were being robbed the knowledge that they had nothing to dread.

“I once had my sleigh and reindeer stolen while I was in a home setting up the toys, and I must admit that I paused to enjoy the milk and cookies that a child left me,” Santa said. “But with some kindly police officer’s help, I was able to recover the sleigh and reindeer rather quickly. You see my lead reindeer has a bright red nose and we were able to spot him from about three blocks away.”

Santa said his brush with crime made him understand why families were installing burglar alarms and why they were more concerned about a strange old fat man in red entering their home in the middle of the night. He told me that he was looking into some kind of security system for his sleigh as well.

I asked him about the burglary that occurred that morning in South Philly and he replied he was well aware of the sad incident.

“I plan to visit the house tonight on my rounds and with a little magic I’ll leave them some special gifts under their tree,” Santa explained. “I also did a little investigative work to find the crooks, as I have powers the police lack."

Santa said he discovered who the crooks were, and he tipped the police off. He also plans to leave the crooks lumps of coal in their stockings, which will be hung with care in the local jail.

“Don’t they know I’m watching?” Santa asked.” I know when they have been naughty or good. My surveillance techniques are finer than the FBI’s.”

“This should be a joyful time of year as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ,” Santa said. “This should be a time of love, charity and good cheer.”

The interview concluded, he sprang to his sleigh and to his team gave a whistle and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

Note: With apologies to Clement C. Moore, I offer my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. 

My Online On Crime Column: My Q&A With Ben Yagoda, The Author Of 'Alias O. Henry,' A Novel About The Late, Great Short Story Writer.

Ben Yagoda is the author, coauthor or editor of fourteen books, including an edition of O. Henry’s short stories for the Library of America. 

His latest book is Alias O. Henry, a biographical novel about short story writer O. Henry’s years in New York, 1902-1910. He was awarded Guggenheim and MacDowell Fellowships to pursue this project.

 

He has written about language, writing and many other topics for Slate.com, the New York Times Book Review and Magazine, The American Scholar, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and publications that start with every letter of the alphabet except X and Z.

 

Between 2011 and 2018, he contributed roughly one post a week to Lingua Franca, a Chronicle of Higher Education blog about language and writing. You can find links to some of his posts here.

 

He is a native of New Rochelle, New York; a graduate of Yale; and a resident of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. In 2018, he retired after twenty-five years teaching writing and journalism at the University of Delaware. Before that, he worked as a film critic for the Philadelphia Daily News and an editor for Philadelphia and other magazines. 

I reached out to Ben Yagoda (seen in the above photo) and asked him about Alias O. Henry. 

Davis: Why did you write a novel about O. Henry? 

Yagoda: My first thought was to write a biography. I started reading his short stories and was surprised at how much I liked many of them, especially the humor and the portrait they painted of life in New York City in the first decade of the twentieth century. (That led me to propose an O. Henry anthology of the Library of America, which they agreed to and which was published in 2021.) Then I started to read the previous biographies, and stopped when I came to Gerald Langford’s Alias O. Henry, published in the 1950s. I felt that Langford had done such a good job of ferreting out the knowable facts of O. Henry’s life (or I should say William Sydney Porter’s, as that was his real name), that I couldn’t add much.   

I pondered some other ways of writing about O. Henry and settled on a novel, in part because it would give me a chance to give an answer to some of the open questions about his life. For example, was he really guilty of embezzlement, for which he was tried and convicted in Texas in the late 1890s, and served three and half years in federal prison? Doubts have been raised about what really happened, in part because Porter said virtually nothing in his own defense at his trial. And why, once he settled in New York after his release from prison, did he so adamantly refuse to talk about or even acknowledge his prison experience? Treating his life as fiction would also give me the chance to propose origin stories for some of his stories, to create some characters it would be fun to hang around with for a couple of years, and, finally, to explore some of what was going in on New York in a fascinating period. I borrowed Gerald Langford’s title simply because I felt it was perfect.

Davis: Was his life as interesting as those of his fictional characters? 

Yagoda: In some ways yes, in some ways no. He wasn’t a safecracker like Jimmy Valentine or a kidnapper like the bumbling main characters in The Ransom of Red Chief, but he had a colorful history before he landed in New York—working at ranches in Texas, starting a humor magazine, and, after his initial arrest for embezzlement, absconding to Honduras, where he spent six months before returning home to stand trial. In New York, however, his real life (as opposed to in my book) was pretty dull, mainly consisting of sitting at his desk and writing stories, taking long walks in the city, and occasionally going out for drinks or meals with a small circle of friends.

Davis: How did his life experiences affect his fictional stories?

Yagoda: As noted above, he was very secretive in life, and in his writing, he was the opposite of an autobiographical writer. But he wrote about a fair number of criminals and lowlifes, to a large extent using experiences and information he had gleaned from his fellow inmates while in prison. And he has a number of very clever stories about writers and writing, such as Tommy’s Burglar and Proof of the Pudding.  

Davis: How did you research the life of O. Henry? How did you research the O. Henry era of New York? 

Yagoda: On O. Henry’s life, I read all the biographies, the most useful of which were Langford’s, plus a few written in the 1920s and ‘30s by people who actually knew him, like Robert Davis and Al Jennings, both of whom are characters in my novel. On the era, I kind of went off the deep end, consulting dozens of histories, contemporary accounts of novels, and delving into newspapers, magazines, and documents like the handwritten reports of investigators who went undercover to expose what was going on in brothels. In fact, I had to make a concerted effort to stop researching and start writing.

Davis: How much of the novel is fact and fiction? 

Yagoda: The background and information given about the real-life people who show up in the book—Porter, Jennings, and Davis, plus Bat Masterson and Hattie Rose and a number of figures in more or less cameo roles—is more or less true, but every scene in the book, and of course the dialogue and thoughts I describe, is made up.

Davis: Did O. Henry really meet and work with Bat Masterson and other real people you write about in the novel? 

Yagoda: No question that Bob Davis was his editor. As for Masterson and the others, all I will say is that the interactions are plausible.  

Davis: Was he truly blackmailed about his past life in prison?

Yagoda: Perhaps.

Davis: Why did O. Henry write so many stories about crime and criminals? 

Yagoda: Excellent question! In part because such stories are perennially interesting, in part because (as I mentioned above) he had gotten a lot of good material from his fellow inmates, and also possibly in part because even as he was obsessively private about his criminal past in his daily life, he may have felt compelled to share part of it on the page.

Davis: Do you have a favorite O. Henry story? 

Yagoda: The famous ones - Gift of the Magi, A Retrieved Reformation, The Ransom of Red Chief, The Last Leaf, The Cop and the Anthem - all hold up well. But when asked to name my favorite, I generally pick a lesser known one, An Unfinished Story, where O. Henry confronts more directly (and angrily) than anywhere else the economic pressure young working women in New York were under, and the choices that pressure forced them into.

Davis: Why do you think O. Henry is still being read today? 

Yagoda: Simple—he was a great storyteller. 

Davis: What do you believe is his place in American literature?   

Yagoda: When he died in 1910, he was one of the most successful and popular writers in the country. But pretty quickly the times started to pass him by, as writers like Ernest Hemingway, John O’Hara, Sally Benson, and John Cheever used the short story to present slices of life (often fairly grim ones), while O. Henry’s touchstones of wry humor or pathos and heavy plotting, especially his trademark twist endings, came off as old-fashioned. But he continued and continues to be read in middle schools and high schools (where I first encountered him), and I hope that this novel and the anthology I edited will eventually help him to regain a little stature as a splendid storyteller, a deft humorist, and a true craftsman who made his adopted city of New York his own.

Davis: Thank you for speaking to me today.

Note: You can read my Washington Times On Crime column on O. Henry via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: O. Henry's Humor, Pathos, Drama And Irony: 'My Washington Times 'On Crime' Column On 'O. Henry 101 Stories' 

Cirque Dreams Holidaze Spectacular

Philly Daily, where my Crime Beat column appears, reports that The Cirque Dreams Holidaze Spectacular will be offered at the Miller Theater from December 23^rd to December 28^th.

You can read the piece via the below link:

Cirque Dreams Holidaze Spectacular - Philly Daily 

A Look Back At Bob Hope Singing The Original 'Silver Bells' In 'The Lemon Drop Kid' Film

I love Christmas songs, and I’ll continue to listen to them this holiday season until New Year’s Day. 

I love many of the classic Christmas songs, which have been covered by the great old singers, such as Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and others.    

Silver Bells is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Many of the famous crooners, like Dean Martin, have covered the song, but few remember that it was the late, great comedian Bob Hope who first sang the song in the 1951 film, The Lemon Drop Kid. 

While most people remember Bob Hope for his wonderful USO shows for the troops and his TV specials, he was also a talented comic actor, starring with Bing Crosby in the “Road” film series, and he stared in several films based on Damon Runyon’s short crime stories, such as The Lemon Drop Kid.    

You can hear Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell sing Silver Bells from The Lemon Drop Kid via the below link:

 Silver Bells - with Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell (from "The Lemon Drop Kid") - YouTube

You can also watch the film via the below link: 

  Bing Videos

And you can read about the song and film via the below link:

 http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/453448%7C453708/The-Lemon-Drop-Kid.html 

Note: Damon Runyon is one of my favorite writers. In addition to The Lemon Drop Kid, I also like other films based on Damon Runyon stories, such as Guys and Dolls and A Pocket Full of Miracles. 

A Look Back At The Beaton Marionette's 'The Nativity' And 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'

I recall a conversation I had with my granddaughter some years ago about old Christmas traditions. I told her that her grandparents and millions of others used to watch the Beaton Marionettes on TV every year as they performed The Nativity and Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

Marionettes pouncing from strings must seem very low-tech and primitive to a preteen and teenager today, but when we were children in the 1950's and 1960's the marionettes were magical, and we loved them. We watched them every year as we grew up.

The two programs were narrated by the late, great actor Alexander Scourby (seen in the above photo). Scourby also portrayed C. Clement Moore, the author of Twas the Night Before Christmas.

The TV programs brings back fond memories of Christmas as a child. My parents did not have a lot of money, but they always provided a grand Christmas holiday for our family.

You can watch the two short programs via the below links: 

Twas the Night Before Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzNJxLvbRrM

Part One of The Nativity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXCNTW2glEw&playnext=1&list=PLEE47A548FC0AC749&index=15

Part Two of The Nativity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD1sCa5pBLo&feature=related 

Christmas Toys Portend the Future

As we approach Christmas, I’m thinking of my wife, my grown children and my grandchildren and another good year. 

I’m also thinking of my later mother and father, Edward M. Davis and Claire Ann Wardino-Davis. 

As I noted in earlier post, when I was about 11 or 12 in the early 1960s, I told my mother that I wanted to be a writer. I asked her to buy me a typewriter, and I told her that if I had a typewriter, I would be a published writer in a year.   

Paul Davis On Crime: One Special Christmas Gift Remembered  

This was a bad time to ask for extravagant gifts, as my father was hurt on the job and he was out of work. We were poor, but we never went hungry nor did we did not want for any of the basic necessities. In one of last conversations with my older brother Edward R. Davis, we agreed that despite our poor background, we had a happy childhood thanks to our parents. 

I don’t know how my mother did it, but she purchased an Olivetti Underwood typewriter for Christmas that year. It took me a lot longer than a year to become a published writer, but I finally did become a professional writer. (I have the typewriter still and it works, although I use a computer these days.)  

Because of our financial status back then, my older brother and I were allowed only one big gift for Christmas (although we got socks and underwear in our hung stockings). 

Supermarkets in the early 1960s placed the big gifts on top of the shelves that held their products. Some were based on TV shows. One year, I asked for the Wyatt Earp set, which included a street in Dodge City and toy figures of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and other notable characters from the popular TV show and from history. I loved the TV show, and I loved the toy set.  

Another year I asked for the Zorro set, based on the Walt Disney TV series Zorro. The set included the cantina and the hacienda and toy figures of Zorro/Don Diego de la Vega, Zorro’s deaf-mute servant Bernado, and the comical soldier Sergeant Garcia. Like Wyett Earp, I loved the TV show, and I loved the toy set.

I selected a 2 or 3-foot toy aircraft carrier during a later year. The toy carrier, which resembles the above photo up to a point, but my carrier was better built and more realistic. The carrier had toy aircraft, flight deck and hander bay equipment, toy pilots and flight deck sailors.    

And the following year, I asked for a 2 or 3-foot-long submarine with a see-through plastic removable top that showed the various compartments of a ballistic submarine and the sailors aboard the submarine. I searched for a similar model via Google and eBay, but I found mothering like it.

That year I had my own Navy in the living room with aircraft carrier and my submarine. I wonder now if my toy ships did indeed portend the future.

I enlisted in the Navy when I was 17 years old and I was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War. I was not assigned to a submarine after the war, but I received orders to a 100-foot-long Navy Harbor Tugboat that was assigned to the U.S. Nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. Owning and playing with the toy ships could be regarded as training.   

Sadly, as I grew older and stopped playing with toys, I threw out my Navy ships. I wish I still had them, as they would adorn the top of my bookcases in my basement office and library, along with my photos and other mementos from my years in the Navy.