Day: July 7, 2009

President Lincoln

Just this evening I’ve finished reading William Lee Miller’s President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, mentioned here last week. I have read any number of Lincoln books over the years, notably and most recently, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and David Herbert Donald’s biography Lincoln. Miller’s book deserves mention along with these.

The book is more an analytical than a narrative history. It takes a number of events and topics and explains in detail how Lincoln approached them. In so doing, Miller makes a persuasive case for Lincoln’s remarkable, yet almost disqualifying personal characteristics for a political leader, and Lincoln’s indispensable, perhaps single, ability to preserve the Union and end slavery. Anyone with an interest in the era or Lincoln will appreciate this book. It is instructive, provocative, occasionally amusing, and at times moving.

(I would only add that it might, in places, have been improved with tighter editing.)

I haven’t read Miller’s Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography, despite owning a copy. It will be on the agenda soon.

Best line of the day

“I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer and my bat dodger. Man’s got to do what he’s got to do.”

Satchel Paige

A few others:

“Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”

“I don’t generally like running. I believe in training by rising gently up and down from the bench.”

“Money and women. They’re two of the strongest things in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn’t do for anything else. Same with money.”

“Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”

“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”

“Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”

Leroy Robert Paige

Stachel PaigeBaseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige was born 103 years ago today. A huge star in the Negro Leagues, Paige began pitching in 1926 and was the oldest major league rookie ever when he joined the Cleveland Indians at age 42. Paige pitched in his last major league game in 1965 (at age 59). He died in 1982.

In the barnstorming days, he pitched perhaps 2,500 games, completed 55 no-hitters and performed before crowds estimated at 10 million persons in the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. He once started 29 games in one month in Bismarck, N.D., and he said later that he won 104 of the 105 games he pitched in 1934.

By the time Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as the first black player in the majors, Mr. Paige was past 40. But Bill Veeck, the impresario of the Cleveland club, signed him to a contract the following summer, and he promptly drew crowds of 72,000 in his first game and 78,000 in his third game. (The New York Times)

Paige first published his Rules for Staying Young in 1953. This version is from his autobiography published in 1962, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever.

  1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
  2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
  3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
  4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society — the social ramble ain’t restful.
  5. Avoid running at all times.
  6. And don’t look back — something might be gaining on you.

On this date

… in 1865 at Fort McNair, Mary E. Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold and George A. Atzerodt were executed for their part in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.

Booth Conspirators
Booth Conspirators

Alexander Gardner photo from the Library of Congress

Manifest Destiny

This date, July 7, is significant in American imperial growth. On July 7, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat captured Monterey and officially raised the American flag over California. On July 7, 1898, President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.

Pinetop Perkins

96 today and still making music.

“Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” is one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It was recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis more than 50 years ago.

By this time, Pinetop had developed his own unmistakable sound. His right hand plays horn lines while his left kicks out bass lines and lots of bottom. It was Pinetop, along with Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Little Brother Montgomery, who provided the basic format and ideas from which countless swing bands derived their sound – whole horn sections playing out what Pinetop’s right hand was playing. Although Pinetop never played swing, it was his brand of boogie-woogie that came to structure swing and, eventually, rock ‘n’ roll.

Pinetop Perkins Official Web Page

Pinetop will be appearing in August at the New York City Rockin’ the River Cruise. In October he will be at the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Fesitval.

What’s going on in your car while it’s being serviced?

The first two times Jason brought his truck in to his local Toyota dealership for service, he noticed that someone had taken quarters from his change compartment. He complained both times, but was ignored. So the third time he brought his truck in, he placed a video camera on the passenger side. The dealership didn’t ignore him this time.

Consumerist has the story and some of the video. It’s much more than a few quarters.