Sidewalks
by Tom DeignanRSS 
Recent Posts
- 'The Great Gatsby' author F Scott Fitzgerald’s death and burial another Catholic lesson
- Anthony Weiner running for New York mayor and the Italian mob and Irish Americans strong ties
- Victor Navasky lauds Thomas Nast - American cartoonist known for his racist Irish ape-like drawings
- Immigration is not the problem - history of anti-Irish behavior reflecting on the Chechnyan bombs in Boston
- The good old anti-British days - Margaret Thatcher haters and spats in New York during World War II
Archives
Robert Leckie, a certified member of the “greatest generation,” was born in Philadelphia in 1920. As Leckie’s HBO biography notes, “He was the youngest of eight children in an Irish Catholic family” who was raised in New Jersey.
A few days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Leckie enlisted with the U.S. Marine Corps. He eventually became a machine gunner, serving in Guadalcanal as well as Peleliu, where he was wounded.
Until a few weeks ago, not many people recalled Leckie’s exploits. But these days, thanks to two fellows named Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, it’s hard to get away from Leckie.
This St. Patrick’s season you surely came across it. On Turner Classic Movies or on a DVD player.
John Ford’s 1952 film The Quiet Man has been a St. Patrick’s Day staple for nearly 60 years now.
And for just as long the film has had its detractors. Those who grumble that the film is little more than a brightly-colored jaunt through Irish stereotypes -- the drunks, the brawlers and all those befreckled redheads.
Did you ever wonder why people wear yellow ribbons to express their respect for soldiers? Was it that song from decades ago? That one about the yellow ribbon on the oak tree?
Is that also (if you will) the root of the new movie called The Yellow Handkerchief, starring William Hurt and Twilight's Kristen Stewart, which carries this mysterious obsession with yellow garments into the 21st century?
