One-hundred-four years ago today, November 11th, 1919 at 11 am, an armistice was declared to end World War I, known then as “The Great War.” 

An armistice is a peace agreement, and Armistice Day was, for decades, celebrated here as the day when “the war to end all wars” was over and peace would, humanity hoped, reign worldwide.

A national holiday in France, it’s still celebrated that way, as Armistice Day, as well as in Canada and across Europe, although we’ve renamed the holiday twice here in the US and some countries call it Remembrance Day.

When we were peaceniks during the Vietnam era, Louise and I thought there was a special significance to that moment, 11/11 at 11 am, when the armistice was declared and the guns went silent.

It was an occasion of hope for the world. A time filled with spirit and optimism. An opportunity to lay down arms and work together as peoples and nations to promote a world without war.

Thus, on November 11, 1972 — fifty years ago today at exactly 11 am — Louise and I were married in a little church in downtown Detroit.

I was 21 and she was 19; we’d run our first business together, an electronics repair shop across the street from MSU, for the previous two years, and had just started an herbal tea company with a friend who owned an advertising agency. Our first child was born a bit more than a year later, and two more would come over the following nine years.

Today being our 50th wedding anniversary, we’re taking a week-long (and hopefully Covid-free) vacation, our first in 3 years.

This is all a long roundabout (sorry!) way to explain why there won’t be a Saturday news report this weekend or next, although I’m setting up in advance Sunday’s book reports to send out automatically.

And from time to time next week, internet access allowing, I’ll share with you our favorite columns from the past 30 or so years that are not time- or event-specific. I’ve already set up one for Monday that I think you’ll find very, very thought-provoking.

Thanks again for subscribing to the Hartmann Report and we’ll see you — and be talking with you again “live” in your inbox daily — in a bit over a week.

Thom & Louise