The Trunnion - Blog of Patrick McBriarty

Archive for the ‘Windy City Historians podcast’ Category

2020 the Push-up Resolution

Tuesday, March 17th, 2020 - By Patrick T. McBriarty
So New Year’s Resolutions . . .  Have you broken yours yet?  So far, I’ve both broken and mostly stuck to mine, as we humans love contradictions. Normally I am not a New Year’s Resolution kind of guy, but this year I felt the need for something different.  I had been cycling the last couple years with a group that became a team with uniforms, sponsors, and an executive board last fall.  Composed of late-20s and mostly 30ish-year-old riders I enjoy trying to keep up.  Read More

A New DECADE? Who… What… How… did that Happen?

Wednesday, January 8th, 2020 - By Patrick T. McBriarty
HAPPY NEW YEAR and 2020 no less! It’s hard to believe an entire decade has just slipped by.  Reminds me of shampoo.  Not the 1975 movie with Warren Beatty.  Of course, now I have completely dated myself, even though I did not see it in the theater, rather on TV a few years later.  Anyway my point was, losing a decade is like shampoo because it slowly sneaks up on you, using a little each day, then seemingly all of a sudden… Bam!  Read More

Midwest Name Calling

Tuesday, June 11th, 2019 - By Patrick T. McBriarty
In creating a podcast on Chicago history, co-host Christopher Lynch and I have discovered quite a few place and street names with origins reaching deep into the city’s past, often going back to Native American people and languages.  These fascinating tidbits were sprinkled into the podcast to spice up our storytelling. This adventure began by learning about the word Chicago, or as the French recorded the Algonquin pronunciation “Chicagoua” which means “skunk,” and was also used to identify the wild onion growing in the area known as ramps, and detailed in the first episode of the podcast.  Read More

The Next Challenge… Rewriting History

Friday, September 14th, 2018 - By Patrick T. McBriarty
These days it is unusual for someone to take on large, long-term projects, particularly, in an age of short attention spans, churning news cycles, and quarterly business returns.  Yet, this is my predilection.  Most people find it unwise, ridiculous, or even crazy to spend months, let alone, years developing an idea to see if it will work.  Hmm… have I stumbled on the definition of a creative (or worse yet, a dreamer)? Regardless, there is something in my DNA that propels me through long slogs of research, explorations of the unknown (at least to me), and vaguely envisioned, time-consuming ideas.  Read More

trunnion

noun   trun·nion   \ˈtrən-yən\

a pin or pivot on which something is supported.

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