Kościuszko and Me

We are spoiled by modern air travel. We go to the airport, do the security thing, get on the plane and after some period of time find ourselves at a distant destination. It's amazing! We arrive so quickly by comparison to walking, driving, cycling and all other means of transport. However for the bike, it is not quite so simple. There were a variety of possible shipping options, but ultimately, for this particular trip, it readily became apparent that the most cost-effective approach would be to disassemble Kościuszko, put him in a hard case and stow him in the baggage hold of the plane. For the hard case I chose the Thule RoundTrip Transistion . It is a marvelous case; very intuitively engineered. The install instructions are geared toward an international crowd: no words, only pictures, but done clearly enough to be idiot proof (I think). Unpacking the Thule Transition. However, to properly pack the bike, the wheels, handlebars, pedals, saddle and post must all come off...

Those who know me well tend to think of me as an historian. And, among all things having to do with history, military history has occupied a central part of my reading and research. There is not an era that has not seized my interest at one time or another, but the European period beginning with the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and extending through La Belle Époque (1871-1914) has held a particular fascination. It is easy, of course, to think about history in the broad brushstrokes of epoques, eras and big events such as wars. We are often taught to think of history this way in school (much to my dismay). I, myself, am more interested in getting a sense of history through the study of perhaps not-so-well-known and unknown individuals whose lives were affected by and contributed to the flow of history. Kościuszko, the man.  Source . One relative unknown (to Americans) during this period, was a man by the name of Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (1746-1817). ...