New Mexico Magazine had this item for May 19th. It took place in 1893.
Clandestine leader Vicente Silva kills his wife north of Las Vegas and hires five henchmen to dispose of her body. Dissatisfied with the paltry $10 payment each, they also rob and kill Silva. Two years pass until the Silva deaths are known. Silva ran a prosperous business by day and at night he was the leader of a feared outlaw gang.
Nineteen years ago today I made the round trip from Northern Virginia to Blacksburg to bring Jason, official youngest son of NewMexiKen, home from Virginia Tech for the summer. It was about a 550 mile drive, so not long after I got home from dropping Jason and his stuff off, I collapsed in my Arlington townhouse’s second floor bedroom; exhausted, but not really asleep.
As I lay there dozing on-and-off a little after nine a thunderstorm blew in. I began listening to it, the lightning closer and the thunder right behind and increasingly loud. I was counting the seconds to see how far away the strikes were, when, BAM, the lightning and thunder came in the same instant.
“Wow! That was close.”
I got up to look out the back and front windows to see which large tree it had hit. Not the one in the back open space. Not the even bigger and older one across the street. Odd I thought. It had to be that close.
I went down the two stories to the basement to reset the circuit breakers that had popped. Coming back through, I began the inventory of damaged electronic gear. No phones worked. The TV was screwy and the VCR was blasted. Sitting in the living room I heard a loud static-like sound upstairs and concluded the clock radio had come on, but didn’t work, or maybe the station was off the air. I headed back up, but the noise wasn’t coming from the radio. I started back down again, confused.
Above the stairway landing was a pull-down stepladder to the attic. As I passed—for the third time since the lightning strike I looked up. Through the seam around the molding I could see what was making the crinkly sound.
Flames!
It was a townhouse with a common attic so I immediately alerted neighbors on both sides and had one of them call the fire department (remember, my phones didn’t work). Foolishly (though there was no smoke), I went back in to get my wallet and car keys from the top of the bureau in the bedroom upstairs. I also grabbed a couple of envelopes with utility payments — but not my State Department ID (which I later thought was an interesting psychology).
The nearest fire station was only a few blocks down the street but they were already out on a call. It was ten minutes before the next nearest engine company arrived. You think waiting for a computer to load a program or waiting for a red light to change is long? Try standing in the pouring rain waiting for the fire trucks when your house is on fire.
The firefighters arrived, vented the attic, went out of their way to protect some of my furniture, and stopped the fire just in time to keep the slate roof from crashing through the burned-out attic and destroying the place top down. Even so there was water and smoke damage all the way down to the basement (water gets into walls and runs across ceilings). It took $50,000 and several months to rebuild the place (I was a renter, but I did return after it was rebuilt). State Farm handled my personal claim with courtesy and generosity. I got a lot of new stuff.
The fire inspector the next morning told me that lightning strikes are about 2000°F. This one hit the faux chimney about 20 feet from me.
Harry Truman, Robert Johnson, Rick Nelson, Melissa Gilbert, Coca Cola, Let It Be, and Santa Fe National Trail notwithstanding, the real reason May 8th should be a holiday —
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, photographer, author — once one of my favorite bloggers — pop culture maven, and friend. Happy birthday, Jill.
—–
* 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.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Robert Johnson was born on May 8th 1911.
Robert Johnson stands at the crossroads of American music, much as a popular folk legend has it he once stood at Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar-playing prowess. He became the first modern bluesman, evolving the country blues of the Mississippi Delta. Johnson was a songwriter of searing depth and a guitar player with a commanding ability that inspired no less an admirer than Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones to exclaim, “When I first heard [him], I was hearing two guitars, and it took me a long time to realize he was actually doing it all by himself.”
. . .
Though he recorded only 29 songs in his brief career – 24 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.”
Harry Truman was born on May 8th, 130 years ago today (1884).
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!
David McCullough’s Truman
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.
Found this in a 1992 New Yorker article about chiles and New Mexican cuisine.
According to scientists who have studied the effects of fiery food, a very hot chili sends the nervous system into a state of panic, and the brain reacts by flooding the distressed nerve endings with endorphins, which are the body’s natural painkillers—a sort of friendly morphine. The sudden shot of endorphins is what transforms the pang of hot food into pleasure, and also what makes it considerably more tolerable after the first few bites.
The article, by Jane and Michael Stern, is not available online.
First posted here May 2, 2008.
If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,–if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,–how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,–the little sleepy head on your shoulder,–the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?
So wrote Harriet Beech Stowe in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, describing the scene as Eliza runs with her son, Harry. Reading this classic has somehow escaped me all these years, but I am enjoying it now, and can see — in the early going — why Lincoln reportedly said on meeting Mrs. Stowe, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”
The book came out in 1852; proportionate to the population, it is one of the most popular novels ever.
And it’s fun and interesting to read.
Reposted from May 1, 2011.
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on this date in 1822.
In 1839, his Ohio congressman nominated him for the U.S. Military Academy, but mistakenly as Ulysses S. Grant. The cadet simply adopted the name. Because his new initials were U.S., the same as those of Uncle Sam, Grant was nicknamed Sam in the Army.
The name U.S. Grant took on a whole new meaning in 1862 however.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD
Camp near Fort Donelson
February 16, 1862.
General S. B. BUCKNER,
Confederate Army.SIR: Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U.S. GRANT,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.
From then the U.S. in U.S. Grant stood for Unconditional Surrender.
The 31st annual Gathering of Nations is this weekend at the University Arena (The Pit) in Albuquerque. North America’s largest Indian powwow, it attracts Indian dancers from all over the U.S. and Canada.
I did a little photo essay after attending the Gathering in 2006.
Just before the Grand Entry a bald eagle is carried around the arena floor, faced in each of the four directions, its hood removed and its wings spread. Magnificent (but hard to photograph well from my vantage point).
The Grand Entry is without a doubt the single most colorful event NewMexiKen has ever seen.
If 8-year-old Mack does well in this morning’s 5K, perhaps it’s because he had some Mephistophelean help.
Or has his mother said, “Whoever assigned the bib numbers for this race obviously knows Mack.”
[First posted April 26, 2009.]
… have a new album being released Tuesday, 9 Dead Alive.
As always I wonder two things about Gabriela — how many calories can she burn sitting in a chair and how can she not have carpal tunnel syndrome?
Both Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero are playing Yamaha NX nylon string guitars.
… died a year ago today.
Jones was an acquired taste for me, one I acquired well after the peak of his popularity — though I can actually remember when someone first identified him for me on the radio 50 years ago — a male Billie Holiday in his ability to convey the emotion of a song — and I do consider that the highest praise.
This essay about Jones — and so much more — is simply incredible. If you’ve read nothing else about the singer, read this by Tom Junod.
Today is the birthday of Carol Burnett, 81, and Bobby Rydell, 72.
Duane Eddy was born on this date in 1938, which would make him 76 today. Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
One of the earliest guitar heroes, Duane Eddy put the twang in rock and roll. “Twang” is a reverberating, bass-heavy guitar sound boasted by primitive studio wizardry. Concocted by Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood in 1957, twang came to represent the sound of revved-up hot rods and an echo of the Wild West on the frontier of rock and roll. Eddy obtained his trademark sound by picking on the low strings of a Chet Atkins-model Gretsch 6120 hollowbody guitar, turning up the tremolo and running the signal through an echo chamber. Behind the mighty sound of twang, Eddy became the most successful instrumentalist in rock history, charting fifteen Top Forty singles in the late Fifties and early Sixties. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. No less an authority than John Fogerty has declared, “Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock and roll guitar god.” Eddy’s influence is widespread in rock and roll. A twangy guitar drove Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and twang echoes in the work of the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dave Edmunds, Chris Isaak and many more.
“Cannonball,” “Rebel Rouser,” “Forty Miles of Bad Road” and I’m cruising Speedway Boulevard in Tucson all over again. Someone else is driving — I’m not THAT old — but nevertheless, little rock and roll is as evocative as Duane Eddy, dated as it seems now.
Bernard Malamud was born on this date in 1914. Malamud twice won the National Book Award (The Magic Barrel, The Fixer) and the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (The Fixer). He’s also the author of The Natural.
Gertrude Pridgett was born on this date in 1886. She began performing in 1900, singing and dancing in minstrel shows. In 1902, she married performer William “Pa” Rainey and became known as Ma Rainey.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has this to say about inductee Ma Rainey:
If Bessie Smith is the acknowledged “Queen of the Blues,” then Gertrude “Ma” Rainey is the undisputed “Mother of the Blues.” As music historian Chris Albertson has written, “If there was another woman who sang the blues before Rainey, nobody remembered hearing her.” Rainey fostered the blues idiom, and she did so by linking the earthy spirit of country blues with the classic style and delivery of Bessie Smith. She often played with such outstanding jazz accompanists as Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, but she was more at home fronting a jugband or washboard band.
Frederick Law Olmsted was born on this date in 1822. He was America’s foremost landscape architect of the 19th century and the designer of New York’s Central Park.
John James Audubon was born on this date in 1785.
… was established as Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park on April 25, 1947. It became a National Park in 1978.
When Theodore Roosevelt came to Dakota Territory to hunt bison in 1883, he was a skinny, young, spectacled dude from New York. He could not have imagined how his adventure in this remote and unfamiliar place would forever alter the course of the nation. The rugged landscape and strenuous life that TR experienced here would help shape a conservation policy that we still benefit from today.
A wide diversity of animals make their home in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. An abundance of native grasses provide sustenance for grazing animals both large and small while the tapestry of different habitats attracts a great number of birds. The terrain of the badlands creates microclimates of warm, dry slopes, relatively cool and wet juniper woodlands, and riverbottoms.
“I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me.” Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt National Park is located in the badlands of western North Dakota. The park is comprised of three areas: South Unit, North Unit and Elkhorn Ranch Unit.
I have just one digitized photo from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It’s of a visitor to our campsite in 1998.
Ella Fitzgerald, Edward R. Murrow, Albert King, Jerry Leiber, Al Pacino, Talia Shire, Hank Azaria, Renee Zellweger, Tim Duncan — is this not enough for a national holiday on April 25th?
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, on this date in 1917 (she died in 1996). Scott Yanow’s essay for the All Music Guide is first rate. It begins:
“The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday). Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as “Love for Sale” sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class.
There are many great Fitzgerald albums but an excellent, inexpensive place to start is The Best of the Song Books.
Egbert Roscoe Murrow was born on this date in 1908. He died in 1965.
A Murrow radio report from a bombing raid over Berlin (he made 25 bombing runs):
The clouds were gone and the sticks of incendiaries from the preceding waves made the place look like a badly laid out city with the streetlights on. The small incendiaries were going down like a fistful of white rice thrown on a piece of black velvet. As Jock hauled the Dog up again, I was thrown to the other side of the cockpit, and there below were more incendiaries, glowing white and then turning red. The cookies—the four-thousand-pound high explosives—were bursting below like great sunflowers gone mad. And then, as we started down again, still held in the lights, I remembered the Dog still had one of those cookies and a whole basket of incendiaries in its belly, and the lights still held us. And I was very frightened.
The above from a fine 2006 article by Nicholas Lehmann in The New Yorker.
Albert Nelson was born on this date in 1923 (he died in 1992). We know him as Albert King.
As an electric guitar player who focused more on tone and intensity than flash, Albert King had a tremendous impact on countless rock and roll guitarists, including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Bloomfield and Stevie Ray Vaughan. King was also one of the first bluesmen who crossed over into the world of soul music, signing with Stax Records and recording such classic songs as “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “Crosscut Saw.”
Jerry Leiber was born 80 years ago today (he died in 2011). Leiber and partner Mike Stoller are in the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame.
By the time they were 20, in just three years of working together, their early songs had been recorded by a collection of true all-stars in the rhythm and blues genre including Jimmy Witherspoon, Little Esther, Amos Milburn, Charles Brown, Little Willie Littlefield, Bull Moose Jackson, Linda Hopkins, Ray Charles and Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton who actually first recorded “Hound Dog” in 1952. Atlantic Records executives, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler among them, were impressed, and in 1955 signed Leiber and Stoller to the first independent production deal, forever changing the course of production in the record industry.
For the next decade, well into the late ’60s the hits of Leiber and Stoller were constantly at the top of the charts, including the memorable “Stand By Me,” “Spanish Harlem” and “I (Who Have Nothing),” by Ben E. King; “On Broadway,” “Dance With Me” and “Drip Drop” by The Drifters; LaVern Baker’s “Saved” and Ruth Brown’s “Lucky Lips.”
During this same productive period, there were other Leiber and Stoller smashes, including “Love Potion #9,” by The Clovers, “Only In America” by Jay and The Americans, “I Keep Forgettin,” by Chuck Jackson, Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City,” The Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby” and “Fools Fall In Love,” “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” by The Cheers and “Ruby Baby” by Dion DiMucci. [And virtually everything by The Coasters.]
Following the triumph of “Hound Dog,” Elvis Presley actually went on to record more than 20 Leiber and Stoller songs, including such highlights as “Loving You,” “Bossa Nova Baby,” “She’s Not You” and “Santa Claus Is Back In Town.” [And “Jailhouse Rock.”]
Ted Kooser, former poet laureate of the United States (2004–2006), author of many poetry collections, and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is 75 today.
Eight-time Oscar nominee Al Pacino is 74. He won for Scent of a Woman, but not for The Godfather or Godfather II. Pacino was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for the first Godfather, which seems odd until one remembers that Caan and Duvall were also nominated for supporting and Brando won for lead.
Another Godfather cast member, Talia Shire is 68 today. Connie Corleone-Rizzi in the Godfather movies, Miss Shire was Adrian in the Rocky films. She was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for Godfather II (1974) and for the best actress Oscar for Rocky (1976). Talia Shire’s actual name is Talia Rose Coppola. She is the sister of director Francis Ford Coppola, which makes her the aunt of Sofia Coppola (daughter of Francis Coppola) and the aunt of Nicolas Cage (son of another Coppola brother).
Agador Spartacus is 50 today. So are Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Professor Frink, Comic Book Guy and Dr. Nick Riviera. All are played by the multi-talented Hank Azaria, who was born on this date in 1964. Agador Spartacus is the Guatemalan houseboy in The Birdcage. Azaria appeared on Friends six times and 13 times on Mad About You.
Renée Zellweger is 45. Twice nominated for best actress, Miss Zellweger won the Oscar for a supporting role in Cold Mountain (without her that film would have died of its own weight). She was born in Katy, Texas, but her parents were born in Switzerland and Norway.
Joe Buck is 45 today.
Jason Lee is 44 today. Tim Duncan is 38.
Shirley Temple was born on April 23, 1928.
It was on the date in 1791 that James Buchanan, one-time worst president ever of the U.S., was born.
Stephen A. Douglas, the short guy who debated Lincoln during the 1858 election—and won the election — was born on this date in 1813. Douglas died shortly after Lincoln’s inaugural as president in 1861.
April 23, 1564, is generally accepted as the birth date of William Shakespeare.
And 52 years later, on April 23, 1616, both Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died. One likes to think that had they been in heaven sooner, The Bible would have been better written.
The Rio Grande Cottonwood, a welcome sight to pioneer desert caravans because it often signaled water, typically reaches 50 to 60 feet in height, with a trunk of three feet in diameter. Some of the grand old cottonwoods in the Rio Grande Valley have reached 90 feet in height, with trunks five feet across. In open areas, the tree may divide into branches near its base, producing a spreading crown. . . .
The Rio Grande Cottonwood reproduces by seeding, unlike many other flood-plain trees which regenerate by sprouting. It flowers in the spring, before it leafs out. It releases its seeds, each carried by downy white tuft, or “parachute,” in anticipation of traditional spring floods and winds, the principal mechanisms for dispersion. A mature Rio Grande Cottonwood can produce as many as 25 million seeds in a season, covering wide areas with a blanket of “cotton.”
Ron Howard is no doubt celebrating his brother’s 55th birthday today.
Ron Howard’s brother has more than 200 film and television credits including roles in many of his brother’s films — Cocoon, Apollo 13, Cinderella Man and Frost/Nixon come to mind. Many will remember Ron Howard’s brother also as the 8-year-old kid in the TV series Gentle Ben. Howard’s younger sibling was also the voice of Roo in the Disney Winnie the Pooh films, and more recently the voice of the balloon man in Curious George.
“On April 20, 1914, members of the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a group of armed coal miners and set fire to a makeshift settlement in Ludlow, Colorado, where more than a thousand striking workers and their families were camped out.”
The Ludlow Massacre Still Matters
Further background on the event 100 years ago: There Was Blood.
“[S]urveys would reveal a 759,000-percent spike in the consumption of egg salad in the week immediately following Easter…”
Amusing and useful: How To Hard-Boil Eggs, For Godly Or Ungodly Purposes
Moyers & Company with Paul Krugman on Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
… in Massachusetts. (Well, I guess it’s the third Monday now, but whatever.) Happy Patriot’s Day.
Today we celebrate the birthday
… of TV’s Wyatt Earp. Hugh O’Brian is 89.
… of Elinor Donahue. Donahue has nearly 100 credits listed at IMDB, but foremost she was the oldest daughter on famed 1950s sitcom “Father Knows Best.” Betty “Princess” Anderson is 77.
… of Ashley Judd, 46.
… of Oscar-nominee (2001) Kate Hudson. She’s more than almost famous at 35.
… of Troy Polamalu. He of the amazing locks is 33.
… of Oscar-nominee (2005) Catalina Sardino Moreno. She’s full of grace at 33.
… of Maria Sharapova, 27.
(I know Kate, Catalina and Maria and I post a photo of Troy. Weird.)
Ole Evinrude was born on this date in 1877. Guess what he invented.
Eliot Ness was born on this date in 1903.
Ever since Eliot Ness first published The Untouchables in 1957, the public has fallen in love with the adventures of this authentic American hero. His book was a runaway best seller because it was the exciting true story of a brave and honest lawman pitted against the country’s most successful gangster, Al Capone. The television series that followed in the 1950’s and the Kevin Costner movie in 1987 built fancifully on the same theme.
Vera Jayne Palmer was born on this date in 1933. We know her as Jayne Mansfield.
Grace Kelly became Her Serene Highness Princess Grace on this date in 1956.
By 1956, Grace Kelly was calling it quits after a movie-acting career of only five years—but what a career it was. Her 11 films included the 1952 classic High Noon, the 1956 musical High Society, and the Alfred Hitchcock-directed masterpieces Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. She had won an Oscar for her role in 1954’s The Country Girl—and all this before her twenty-seventh birthday.
American Heritage
