A day like all other days, except...

First, today happens to be Friday the 13th. Second, today is also a full moon, the Strawberry Moon, to be exact. Third, today is also the day when Private/Sergeant (pick one) Bowe Bergdahl, former prisoner of war/deserter (pick one) captured by the Taliban, who played soccer with him/kept him in an iron cage (pick one), returned to U.S. soil from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. He is now in San Antonio, Texas, at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston.

Everyone knows -- at least everyone who is superstitious -- that Friday the 13ths are unlucky. Everyone also knows -- perhaps a different set of “everyones” -- that during a full moon more babies are born, more crimes are committed, the tides are higher, and more loonies are out and about, doing their thing.

Which reminds me to say, “Welcome, Lord and Lady Yorkshire Pudding, to our shores!”

As always, my timing is impeccable.

Moving right along, it is therefore with joy and pride/fear and trepidation (pick one, er, two) that I am now able to present to you a link to an article by Kimberly Dozier in The Daily Beast wherein two letters that Bowe Bergdahl wrote from prison and that were delivered by the International Red Cross to his parents have been made public today for the first time.

The article contains fascinating stuff, not least of which is Bergdahl’s innovative spelling. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that one had to have graduated from high school to be able to join the military, but perhaps spelling is not taught in our schools any more. Wait, I believe I remember reading that Bowe Bergdahl was home-schooled. As a little girl named Alice once said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

I’m sure we'll be hearing much more about Private/Sergeant Bergdahl and the Taliban in the days ahead, Friday the 13th or no.

Stay tuned, come hell or high water.

In case you’re wondering what all the brouhaha is about

...in the case of the exchange of American Bowe Bergdahl for five Guantanamo Bay detainees, Yahoo published an article today by Edward Morrissey that first appeared in The Week that may shed some light on the subject.

But the real news hereabouts is of a twofold nature:

Firstfold First, new reader Gerry Brague, who may be a relative of mine (we’re still working out the details) , sent me the following photograph of a bottle of wine, Chateau de Brague Bordeaux Superieur 2001, for which I am grateful:

Okay, the bottle is leaning a little, or perhaps it was the photographer, but never mind. The interesting thing to me is that the small print reveals that the Chateau de Brague winery is in Vérac, which is in the Gironde (Aquitaine region) in southwestern France.

This is the Bordeaux region, which makes sense, but la fleuve Brague the river Brague is in southeastern France in the Côte d’Azur region, near Cannes and Nice. So I am confused. Perhaps there are (or were) Bragues all over France.

Nevertheless, in spite of the spelling of our surname, my dad always insisted that his ancestors came from Wales.

Not that kind.

But it’s a great segue into the second part of the twofold news hereabouts. This week, Mrs. RWP’s cousin's son, Jim Holmes (for the genealogical purists among you, Jim is Mrs. RWP’s first cousin once removed, not her second cousin), took first place in the the 41st Cape Fear (North Carolina) Blue Marlin Tournament when he caught this 821-pound whopper. Jim is squatting in the Côte d’Azur region of the photo:

C’est tout pour le moment. Au revoir.