Odds & Ends: October 30, 2026
Tidal Wave by Adam Makos. We’ve had Adam Makos on the podcast several times to talk about his amazing World War II books, and his newest is another great one. What I love about Makos’ work is that he finds these incredible movie-like stories from WWII you’ve never even heard of. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of Tidal Wave: In August 1943, American B-24s flew a treetop-level raid on the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, the place that kept Hitler’s war machine fueled. One of those bombers got shot down and crash-landed on the estate of Princess Catherine Caradja. The princess took the crew in as “her boys,” kept them out of German hands, and pulled them into a circle of unlikely allies that included Romania’s 21-year-old king and the country’s top fighter ace. The narrative is action-packed, full of intrigue, and just a really fun read. It comes out November 3; order it today, and you can crack it open the day it releases.
How to be a (Roman) man. In this essay, classicist Catharine Edwards looks at how Cicero thought about manliness during the collapse of the Roman Republic. For Romans, virtus (from vir, man) started out meaning courage in battle. Cicero wasn’t a general, so he argued that a man could also prove his manhood with his voice — in the Forum and the Senate. Then he lost that arena when Caesar took power. That, combined with the death of his daughter, left Cicero feeling unmanned. So he turned to philosophy and recast virtus as moral excellence: self-control and the courage to face pain and death. It’s a good reminder that men have been grappling with what it means to be a man for a long time (and often defining it in a way that best fits their own qualities).
“Goblins of Eastern Kentucky.” Could human-like creatures exist that we don’t know about? If so, a good place to figure they’d be hiding is in the remote regions of Appalachia, and there are people in Eastern Kentucky who swear they’ve seen them there. After a major flood in the region, sightings of “goblins” — leather-apron-wearing creatures that look kind of like Dobby, from Harry Potter — emerged, and people started theorizing that they got washed out of the deep, abandoned mines where they lived. This episode of the Spooked podcast dives into these reports. It’s a totally wild story — you keep waiting for the War of the Worlds, “just kidding, this isn’t real” disclaimer — but it’s based on firsthand accounts, and it’ll have you wondering if goblins might exist. Makes for a fun, really compelling listen for Halloween.
Bronson 1963 US Army OG-107 Fatigue Utility Shirt. When I was in high school, I used to wear old military shirts, like the ones from the Vietnam era, that you could find at Army surplus stores. But thanks to the fall of the once-great surplus store, those types of shirts are hard to come by. If you track one down on eBay, it’s really expensive. A company called Bronson Mfg. makes replicas of US military clothing, so I got their version of the 1963 Vietnam shirt, and I’ve been wearing it as an overshirt. I like how it looks. It’s not a field jacket, but it kind of has that field jacket feel. It’s made from heavy 9.5 oz cotton sateen and has the mitered pocket flaps and button cuffs of the ’63 pattern. And at $50, it’s reasonably priced.
On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: It’s Harder to Keep Than to Get and Ex Libris: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
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Quote of the Week
Choose your intimate friends, your inner circle of pals, from those who are bigger and better and finer in at least certain qualities than you are, so that you may become like them. Every true friend is in a sense a hero to be emulated.
—Frank H. Cheley
