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e-mail author (edward@ordman.net)                                 Last updated  October 20,  2020
Author Info

Edward Ordman's Storytelling Page

Edward loves storytelling, and is slowly collecting some of his stories here.

Family:
An Electrifying Family  A bit of how my wife Eunice got to be the way she is.
How Arnold Ordman got his name.  New immigrants can have difficulties with the system.
Closing the Whorehouse   A not uncommon early business practice causes problems.
The Most Memorable Role   Evelyn Ordman embarks upon a career in the Theatre
Evelyn vs. the National Bureau of Standards    Evelyn interests NBS in Children's theater.
An Adventure in Arabia   During the Gulf War, my brother gets decorated and court-martialed
The Fish Heard Round the World    On the odd ways gefillte fish has travelled...
My Grandmother's Gun    Which didn't fire, but did do the job

Period Pieces:
The Musical Elks   Jewish immigrants around 1920 struggle to become Americans.
Davey Crockett in a Jewish Drugstore.  ...and still working at it in the 1950's.
One Under Every Bed    A seven-year old encounters Howdy Doody and Joe McCarthy.
The Invasion of Camp David   A parlor game leads in unexpected directions.
Integration comes to the Boyds PTA    A courageous black in 1950's-1960's Maryland.
The Turkish Police Story   Edward is suspected of drug running by the Turkish Police.
Nasser to the Rescue    A young Jew wanders into the wrong part of Palestine.
A Litvak visits Galicia    An adventure in the Museum of Western Art, Odessa, Ukraine.
George Washington is Dead    Another 1920's Peabody story
The Cloak-Makers Union    A humorous song recalled by my father
Ending the epidemic[2020].  A period piece about events of 2020: who is it that gets sick?

Not quite religion...
Not about Samson and Delilah     But about Samson's mother, with a reference to my late wife Eunice     
A Rather Difficult Youth           A bit of obscure Church History with a surprise ending.
The Maccabees                         Not the Chanukah story your father told you
A Tale of the Chinese Jews      ... and of the accuracy of the Biblical text.
The Greatly Reduced Story      Some revelations are not meant to be shared.
If Jesus had a credit card                A somewhat strange essay on economics of the Late Roman Empire.
Father, Son, and Distilled Spirits   One attempt to save my soul, that failed.
A Church on Every Corner          Foreigners bewildered by religions in the United States
A Sermon for Palm Sunday         In church, I quibble with the pastor over a Hebrew word
Installing a Pastor                         An essay in praise of  (defrocked) Rev. Maurice McCracken
The Polish Cook                           An elderly Polish cook teaches graduate students some Talmud
The Messiah and the two tailors     How will the Messiah affect the tailor business?
Shankara and the Voice of God      Do you recognize a divine message when you hear it?
Four Ways God Created Man        A valuable lesson from a Muslim creationist
Looking for Saint Philip Neri        Traveling in Bolivia, and experiencing what might be a miracle 
The Gurney Pusher                        He had religious objections to taking my wife to the morgue

Travel
Looking for Saint Philip Neri        Traveling in Bolivia, and experiencing what might be a miracle 
Bhutan          (long pictorial essay rather than a story, slow to load) late in this, we fall into a fertility festival
Cuba              (long essay, rather than a story)
Faeroe Islands   (long pictorial essay, with a couple of stories embedded in it)
Getting Lost in Kiev (Ukraine)      
items from Cambodia and Thailand

Miscellaneous:

A Vietnamese New Year in Memphis   Edward and Eunice show up at the wrong, or right, party.
A Visit to Africa    A 1996 visit to Malawi, remarks on ecology, economics, and democracy.
A few little kid stories   Some short stories of children's views on how the world is organized.
Ann Landers      When a net search for "Edward Ordman" and "Jesus Christ" produced one hit.
Is sudoku (or maze-making) mathematics?     An elementary essay with a bit of math...
Mourning lost museums    They get looted in Baghdad, or revised in Berlin.
Isosceles     A fantasy, suffering from too much mathematics
Why does a soccer ball have twelve pentagons?    Real, not facetious, mathematics
Thoughts for late October 2020    A memoir written at a time of political and health crisis

Tales of Kenyon College:
Philander's Well     College students demonstrate to preserve a pothole in the road
Otton Nikodym      A fond memory of a college teacher noted for his research
The Village Constable is Deposed     Rural students try to keep up with the revolution of the 1960's
The Night the Tree Caught Fire     Further adventures of the deposed constable

Memories of Berkeley in the late 1960's
Tale of a Sea Lion    Pieced together from news reports I read

A meeting of the Committee on Funny
        Hats

A picture taken at Edward's retirement party at the University of Memphis, May 2001. Edward is posing as chairman of the Committee on Funny Hats, whose members include the (acting) University President, Associate Provost, Department Chair, CS Section head, and other distinguished members of the faculty. 

   The story behind the picture is published as Funny Hats Topped my Teaching Career