I learned history at my daddy's knee, he was the oldest boy in a family of 15 kids. His daddy would go around and prize fight my young father - and so, I was instilled with the fight of the Irish and a thirst for knowledge. My mother descended from Quaker and Lenni Lenape. A lot of what she tried to instill in me was lost when I joined the Marine Corps at 17, but between the blood of these two great Americans, I have learned to excel in what I now understand is the essence of Americanism.