“I thought about voting for Hillary at the beginning. I don’t care that she is a woman. I need more than that. Neither [Obama's] race, his gender, her race or her gender was enough. I needed something else, and the something else was his wisdom.”
And, on her remark that Bill Clinton was the first black president:
“People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.”
“Well, you know what’s interesting, the experts say if you do the math, there’s no way Hillary Clinton can win the nomination, and today, Hillary responded by saying, ‘People who do math are elitist.’”
“And you can tell Barack Obama is feeling confident. Did you see what he did today? He went bowling with his former pastor, Reverend Wright.”
It seemed like a good use of time. Labor had begun, but was progressing slowly. No sense not getting some chores taken care of while we waited at home. Most worthwhile seemed the leaky toilet.
I can’t remember what I was thinking, but at some point I moved the toilet too far and ruptured the fresh water feed at the valve. Water was spewing everywhere and there was no way to turn it off. Well into labor or not, the expectant mother went rushing around outside looking for the main shutoff, and then the tool needed to turn its valve. I stayed with the toilet trying to stem the geyser with my hand or a towel or whatever. I think actually at one point we switched roles, but ultimately I was the better stopper and the one who was heavy with child had to get the water off, which she eventually did.
A lot of water can come out of a small pipe in ten minutes (it must have been longer). A lot of water. No matter, we needed more. So it was then — not too surprisingly given all that exercise — that the mother’s water broke.
This was around noon. The afternoon was spent cleaning up the mess and waiting for the landlord to come home that evening so he could repair the plumbing. (I’d done all the harm they’d let me do for one day.) The labor stalled and soon mother, grandmother and obstetrician were playing cards, while I waited for game seven of the NBA Championship to begin. You know the one, the classic where Willis Reed hobbled onto the court, hit his first two shots, psyched out the Lakers, and the Knicks won 113-99.
Or so I’ve read, because I never saw the game. After lulling us into lethargy all afternoon, at about 6 PM the baby abruptly said “I’m ready” and within a few minutes Jill was born — at home* in a house that had no running water.
That baby is now a wonderful mother of three herself, a wife, author, one of my favorite writers, pop culture maven, and friend. Happy birthday Jilly.
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* Home delivery hadn’t been planned. The grandmother however, was an obstetrics nurse and the doctor was there as a courtesy to her. Given the baby’s sudden impatience, staying at home was just about imperative. Honoring family tradition, Jill’s second was born in a hospital with no potable water thanks to 2003’s Hurricane Isabel. That plumbing problem wasn’t my fault.
Eric Hilliard Nelson would have been 68 today. (He died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1985.)
Ricky Nelson was a teen idol who had something more than good looks going for him - namely, talent. On television, he acted out his real-life role as the son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in the Fifties. As a rock-and-rolling teenager on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, he practically grew up in the nation’s living rooms. In the recording studio, having landed a contract based on his TV stardom, he more than made the grade. No mere rock and roll pretender, Nelson was the real thing: a gentle-voiced singer/guitarist with an instinctive feel for the country-rooted side of rockabilly. And he had exquisite taste in musicians, utilizing guitarist James Burton (formerly a Dale Hawkins sideman, later an Elvis Presley accompanist) as his secret weapon in the studio.
Nelson’s first single - “A Teenager’s Romance” b/w “I’m Walkin’,” the latter a Fats Domino song - made the Top Ten shortly after its release in April 1957. He was sixteen years old at the time. The next year, he reached #1 with “Poor Little Fool” (which was written by Sharon Sheeley, who was Eddie Cochran’s girlfriend). His discerning taste in material - a rare talent in one so young - also led him to “Hello Mary Lou” (his signature song) and “Travelin’ Man,” both of which topped the charts. All totaled, Nelson scored an incredible 33 Top Forty hits in a seven-year period.
Though he recorded only 29 songs in his brief career - 22 of which appeared on 78 rpm singles released on the Vocalion label, including his first and most popular, “Terraplane Blues” - Johnson nonetheless altered the course of American music. In the words of biographer Stephen C. LaVere, “Robert Johnson is the most influential bluesman of all time and the person most responsible for the shape popular music has taken in the last five decades.” Such classics as “Cross Road Blues,” “Love In Vain” and “Sweet Home Chicago” are the bedrock upon which modern blues and rock and roll were built.
Or, as Eric Clapton put it in the liner notes to the Johnson boxed-set, “Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived….I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson. His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice, really.”
Don Rickles is 82 today.
Thomas Pynchon is 71.
He is well known for his reclusiveness and elusiveness. After his first novel, V., was published in 1963 and Time magazine sent a photographer to his home in Mexico City, Pynchon reportedly evaded the reporter by jumping out his window, riding a bus to the mountains, and staying there while he grew a beard — and when he returned natives called him Pancho Villa. In 1997, a CNN crew stalked Pynchon in his Manhattan neighborhood and was able to capture him on film. He became upset, called the station, and asked that he not be pointed out to viewers in any of the footage. He said, “Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.” When they asked him about his reclusiveness, he said, “My belief is that ‘recluse’ is a code word generated by journalists … meaning, ‘doesn’t like to talk to reporters.’”
When he received the National Book Award in 1974 for Gravity’s Rainbow, he sent comedian Irwin Corey to the ceremony to accept the prize.
He has, however, made two cameo appearances on the animated television series The Simpsons. In one of them, Marge has become an author and Pynchon provides a blurb for her book. Pynchon appears on the show and says, “Here’s your quote: Thomas Pynchon loved this book, almost as much as he loves cameras!” Then he yells at cars passing by, “Hey, over here, have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we’ll throw in a free autograph!”
Toni Tennille is 68. (The Captain, Daryl Dragon, was 65 last August.)
Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach, is 51, and Ronnie Lott, the football hall of famer, is 49.
Melissa Gilbert is 44. Yup, “Half Pint” from The Little House on the Prairie. She was 10 when the show began. Ms. Gilbert was President of the Screen Actors Guild 2001-2005. (Past presidents include Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Ed Asner and Patty Duke). Ms. Gilbert was the youngest person ever to receive a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Truman Library has the Truman diary online. The diary, which was just discovered in 2003, was kept intermittently by the President during 1947. It is fascinating reading.
The entry for January 3:
Byrnes & I discussed General Marshall’s last letter and decided to ask him to come home. Byrnes is going to quit on the tenth and I shall make Marshall Sec[retary] of State. Some of the crackpots will in all probability yell their heads off-but let ‘em yell! Marshall is the ablest man in the whole gallery.
Mrs. Roosevelt came in at 3 P.M. to assure me that Jimmy & Elliott had nothing against me and intended no disparagement of me in their recent non-edited remarks. Said she was for me. Said she didn’t like Byrnes and was sure he was not reporting Elliott correctly. Said Byrnes was always for Byrnes and no one else. I wonder! He’s been loyal to me[.] In the Senate he gave me my first small appropriation, which started the Special Committee to investigate the National Defense Program on its way. He’d probably have done me a favor if he’d refused to give it.
Maybe there was something on both sides in this situation. It is a pity a great man has to have progeny! Look at Churchill’s. Remember Lincoln’s and Grant’s. Even in collateral branches Washington’s wasn’t so good-and Teddy Roosevelt’s are terrible.
The entry for January 8:
The Senate took Marshall lock, stock and barrell [sic]. Confirmed him by unanimous consent and did not even refer his nomination to a committee. A grand start for him.
I am very happy over that proceedure [sic]. Marshall is, I think[,] the greatest man of the World War II. He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chief of Staff and he made a grand record in China.
When I asked him to take the extrovert Pat Hurley[']s place as my special envoy to China, he merely said “Yes, Mr. President I’ll go.” No argument only patriotic action. And if any man was entitled to balk and ask for a rest, he was. We’ll have a real State Dep[artmen]t now.
The entry for July 6:
Drove an open car from Charlottesville to Washington-starting at 9:15 Washington time.
Had a V[irgini]a Highway Policeman in a car ahead making the pace at exactly the speed allowed by V[irgini]a law. He forced all the trucks to one side as I always wanted to do. Made the drive in 3 hours. Had Sec[retary] of Treas[ury] Snyder, Adm[iral] Leahy, and Doctor Brig[adier] Gen[eral] Graham as passengers. All said they enjoyed the ride and felt they needed no extra accident coverage!
The Santa Fe National Historic Trail was established on May 8th in 1987.
Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1821 until 1846, it was an international commercial highway used by Mexican and American traders. In 1846, the Mexican-American War began. The Army of the West followed the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico. When the Treaty of Guadalupe ended the war in 1848, the Santa Fe Trail became a national road connecting the United States to the new southwest territories. Commercial freighting along the trail continued, including considerable military freight hauling to supply the southwestern forts. The trail was also used by stagecoach lines, thousands of gold seekers heading to the California and Colorado gold fields, adventurers, fur trappers, and emigrants. In 1880 the railroad reached Santa Fe and the trail faded into history.
The very first Coca-Cola was sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on this date in 1886. Dr. John S. Pemberton created the formula, which until 1905 had extracts of cocaine, as well as caffeine-rich kola nut. Bookkeeper Frank Robinson coined the name and it’s his handwriting we know from the trademark.
The Beatles released their last album, Let It Be, on this date in 1970. The tracks were originally recorded 14 months earlier, well before Abbey Road.
Let It Be was the only Beatles album to receive negative, even hostile reviews. The group was dissolving and the tension affected the music. Then in post-production, Phil Spector added his “wall-of-sound” treatment.
Of course, a poor Beatles album is better than most other bands best work.
In 2003, the album was re-released as Let It Be…Naked with Spector’s additions deleted and other changes. Here’s the whole story from Stephen Thomas Erlewine of the All Music Guide.
2 Comments
is superb. 
The very first Coca-Cola was sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on this date in 1886. Dr. John S. Pemberton created the formula, which until 1905 had extracts of cocaine, as well as caffeine-rich kola nut. Bookkeeper Frank Robinson coined the name and it’s his handwriting we know from the trademark.
The Beatles released their last album, Let It Be, on this date in 1970. The tracks were originally recorded 14 months earlier, well before Abbey Road. 
