BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: The Alpha and the Omega Bill Hogan January 18, 2020 Share your memories of Ye Olde Alpha with Weelunk.
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Peace Corps in East Wheeling? Bill Hogan November 9, 2019 This is a tough one to get started. There are so many people involved from not only different backgrounds but different continents. ONE: PEACE CORPS When we arrived in Cove, Benin, West Africa, starting our ...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Poppa’s One, Two, Three Bill Hogan August 24, 2019 Driving through Wheeling Park, I noticed a sign — “Bandstand” — and followed it to the top of the hill. I haven’t been up there in decades. The last time was for a party we had there when the rails around the b...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: A Binge and a Spree Bill Hogan July 7, 2019 I have lived in two universes; they overlap or maybe coincide. It's a paradoxical thing I don’t understand and don’t try. The first was a straight line sort of thing — a loving family, schools, university, Mili...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: The Flicks Bill Hogan May 18, 2019 I was fortunate to attend a noon talk at our library recently, about the old movie theaters in West Virginia. It brought back so many memories of when I was a kid in the 1930s and ’40s when going to a movie on ...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: On Being Irish Bill Hogan March 17, 2019 I am Irish, I guess, because I don’t know what else to be. I am half German, but being German never came easy to me. We are a melancholy lot; I am. That is why we sing and laugh so much, because we are so ve...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Building Good Neighbors Bill Hogan February 16, 2019 Editor's note: The IDEAS page is our place for public opinion, a place where a person can express what concerns them about present-day Wheeling or the world. However, there is one major caveat. The author must ...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Let’s Give Thanks for Thanksgiving Bill Hogan December 2, 2018 I believe it is beautifully ironic that my favorite holiday is identified with the unglamorous turkey. I remember that when we were training for the Peace Corps on Saint Helena’s Island off Beaufort, S.C., we h...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: The Present Predicament of the Catholic Church as Seen From the Sidelines Bill Hogan November 18, 2018 Editor's Note: The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston has been and continues to be a significant sponsor of Weelunk. The staff and board of directors of Weelunk are grateful the Diocese sees the organization as a f...
Bill Hogan’s Musings: ‘Regal’ Jimmy Bill Hogan October 13, 2018 1 “James Samuel Simon, 82, of Wheeling, died Sunday Oct. 7, 2018.” … so the short obituary starts, with mention of his high school and military service. Really not much to report on his 82 years. I knew Jim...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Nothing Happens by Accident Bill Hogan August 18, 2018 1 Susan and I arrived at our new home in Cove, Benin, in West Africa around the first of October 1987. We were driven the 100 kilometers from the de facto capital Cotonou by a Peace Corps truck with our belonging...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Pappy’s Gold Pan Bill Hogan June 9, 2018 In April, my grandson Tommy turned 10, so I wanted to give him a present that was meaningful to me and hopefully to him. I gave him the circular, metal pan with the sloping sides that I had used to try my luck ...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Another Chapter Completed Bill Hogan June 2, 2018 2 It was in the 1940s after we emerged the victor in World War II; and not only a winner but a world power. We initiated the Marshall Plan, named after one of most respected and decorated General Officers of tha...
The Patsy … (Or a Full House on the Train to Notre Dame) Bill Hogan February 7, 2018 Back in the late '40s and early '50s, we would either hitchhike home from Notre Dame, or four or five of us would split the cost of a car rental. The rental cars had governors that restricted the speed to 60 mp...
My Town: Kid Catholic Bill Hogan September 3, 2017 6 May Devotions were held at 7:30 in the evening and were charming. The grade school kids would bring flowers they had picked and file up the side aisle to place them before the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mar...
My Town: Charley Trades in his Dice for the Stock Market Bill Hogan August 24, 2017 7 It was in the late 'forties when I first met Charley. He had one of a large number of Italian restaurants in our area, but Charley’s, the Bella Via, was a bit different in that he also maintained a large gambl...
An Old Man Bill Hogan August 6, 2017 2 The skin and hair have thinned, the muscles have shrunk and weakened, the carriage is bent. The energy that once animated the body and shined out through the eyes is dimmed. The attenti...
Brother Jim Bill Hogan July 8, 2017 Brother Jim, 1931 - 2003 Sometime ago someone asked what Jim did. I thought about it for a minute then told them that Jim did Jim Hogan better than anyone I knew. He really was a bit different. One might say...
A Story Behind a Linsly Statue: West Virginia’s First Flying Ace Bill Hogan July 7, 2017 3 When I was a small boy in the 1930s, my dad would take me to the Armistice Day ceremony at Linsly Military Institute which was located where the Kroger parking lot is now. It seems to me, in my recall, that pil...
Pete Jefferson Bill Hogan May 31, 2017 1 Pete was not a regular in our crowd but was around enough to the extent that he should have been. We knew each other, went to the same parties, but I believe he was a bit older. Pete had an older brother, a han...
Courts Four and Five Bill Hogan March 23, 2017 4 The tennis courts four and five are gone. I drove through Crispin Center with my buddy Rory, a thoroughbred mutt a lot like the driver and saw the work in progress. There was a big commercial dumpster parked th...
Babe Bill Hogan March 3, 2017 12 Babe, I believe his last name was Hert, was in Saint Michaels grade school with my oldest sister Kay when the school was located one block up from Edgington Lane. It is an apartment building now. I believe they...
A Sweet Romance Bill Hogan January 3, 2017 1 My son, Neil, was home from Africa after spending two years in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, and another year or so working with some Italian Missionaries in Uganda. We were having lunch in this trippy ...
The Power of Intense Fragility Bill Hogan November 15, 2016 2 * Title attributed to E. E. Cummings The other evening I attended a musical program at Wheeling Jesuit University. Looking up from a table of delicious desserts after the performance, I saw Mary Hamm across th...
“Ora Pro Nobis” And Other Altar-Boy Mischief Bill Hogan October 5, 2016 1 We arrive at “the age of reason” at the ripe old age of 7, if I recall correctly what I was taught years ago. It was decided by the church that a person of that vintage was experienced and seasoned sufficiently...
My Town: Benjamin Andrews Bill Hogan September 13, 2016 1 I started dating Mary Ann in the late 1940s. Incidentally, dating in my day was asking a girl out for the evening for a movie, a dance etc. Her father, Andy Hess, had bought Table Rock Farm in the early 1930s. ...
A Guardian Angel Bill Hogan September 6, 2016 1 The Wheeling Country Club was still where Stratford Springs restaurant is located today. I was home for just a couple of weeks from a treatment facility for alcoholism and our friends were having a brunch for t...
My Town Bill Hogan August 15, 2016 3 I remember when the entrance to the Riley Law Building was on Chapline Street. One went through the doors and up a short flight of marble steps; I believe there was like a concierge behind a little counter to h...
Black Ties And Corsages/Shooters And Chasers Bill Hogan July 5, 2016 3 There were two big dances during the Christmas season, the White Ball and the Charity Ball. These were formal dances held at the Fort Henry Club. The young ladies wore all white, floor length evening gowns for ...
By A Stroke Of Luck Bill Hogan June 5, 2016 1 "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails....
Remembering Big Lou Bill Hogan May 10, 2016 1 I first met Lou right after World War II. I was a juvenile delinquent for the norms of that era and Lou had a bar just over the Junior Avenue bridge in Elm Grove appropriately named “Lou’s”. The city of Wheelin...
Growing Up At 2 Laurel Ave. Bill Hogan March 15, 2016 7 I don’t think I am different from anyone else in that I thought everyone was raised like I was. It wasn’t until I moved out of my neighborhood and got a little life experience that it began slowly to dawn on m...
The Tools Of The Trade Bill Hogan March 30, 2015 1 The biggest day of my life was the morning I put on my new knickers with the brand new leather lace-up knee boots with the pen knife in a special holster. It was attached to the outside of the right boot halfwa...
On Being Irish Bill Hogan March 16, 2015 I am Irish, I guess, because I don’t know what else to be. I am half German, but being German never came easy to me. We are a melancholy lot; I am. That is why we sing and laugh so much beca...
Little Ships and Big Ships Bill Hogan March 8, 2015 I started in the securities brokerage business in 1957 with a Cincinnati firm named Westheimer & Co. It was a regional firm as most were in those days. The president of the firm was a venerable old gentlema...
An Echo Point Romance Bill Hogan February 14, 2015 5 By Bill Hogan Weelunk Contributor Doodad and Bebe I met Mary Ann’s grandparents when I first dated her. She lived way out in the country, and at that time the roads were a lane and a half and very bump...
The Flair In The Fabric Of Wheeling Bill Hogan January 24, 2015 4 by Bill Hogan I think of the Wheeling of my young years as a time when the city was booming. City streets were full of pedestrian and vehicular traffic competing with streetcars for a place in the flow. Down...
A Christmas Story for the Little Hogans Bill Hogan December 25, 2014 By Bill Hogan From 1972 Weelunk Contributor THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE - AS AMENDED One day God picked up the world, held it in His palm, and studied the big mess people had made by being mean to...
Bill Hogan: Horses Bill Hogan December 20, 2014 1 I don’t know a lot about horses. What little familiarity I have is mostly from betting them. I worked at Wheeling Downs when it was a half-mile horse track back when I was in school, but that comes later. Ba...
The Whores, The Help, and The Hooligans Bill Hogan December 13, 2014 17 Editors' Note: Bill Hogan has offered to share with us a series of his recollections about life in long-ago Wheeling. It seems truly strange to me today to put myself back in the early 1940s, when I was bare...
