Category Archives: History

Letter from the Alamo

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Remember the Alamo. This year the Feb. 24, 1836, letter by William Barret Travis — the famed Victory or Death letter — has been on display at the Alamo since Feb. 23 (and continuing until tomorrow), on loan from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. The Alamo has even set up a web site for the letter, which is here, though I don’t know how long it will be up. Apparently the letter hasn’t been to the Alamo since Travis sent it.

I might have braved the lines to take a look at it, but I’ve been further north, putting up with late winter. Yesterday, of course, was a big snow. What happens after a big snow? Plowing on the street by the village, shoveling on my driveway by me, and occasional snowball fights among the girls. Once paths have been cleared, everyone’s schedule returns to normal, as they did today.

Being a March snow, I’m expecting meltage soon. The only unusual thing about the weather this year was the paucity of snow in early winter, compared to its abundance later on.

The Chicago Time Zone Plaque

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One more item from downtown Chicago, at least until the next time I go there. This plaque, near the junction of LaSalle and Jackson for over 40 years now, memorializes something few people give much thought — few people give it the time of day, you might say. Time zones.THE STANDARD TIME SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES ADOPTED ON THIS SITE — OCTOBER 11, 1883.

Chicago’s famous Grand Pacific Hotel, then on the site of the present Continental Bank building, was the location of the General Time Convention of 1883 which, on October 11 of that year, adopted the current Standard Time System in the United States.

The Convention was called by the nation’s railroads. Delegates were asked to develop a better and more uniform time system to govern railroad operations.

Previously, time had been determined by the position of the sun, with high noon as the only existing standard of exact local time. More than 100 different local times resulted from this method.

The new plan, proposed by William F. Allen, Convention Secretary, established four equal times zones across the country, each one hour ahead of the zone to its west. All railroad clocks in each zone were to be synchronized to strike the hour simultaneously.

The Standard Time System was inaugurated on November 18, 1883. On that Sunday, known as the “Day of Two Noons,” the Allegheny Observatory at the University of Pittsburgh transmitted a telegraph signal when it was exactly noon on the 90th meridian. Railroad clocks throughout the United States were then reset on the hour according to the time zone.

Although implemented by the railroad, the Federal Government, states, and cities began to use the system almost immediately. On March 19, 1918, Congress formally acknowledged the plan by passing the Standard Time Act.

Give Me That Old-Time Papacy

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Miserable cold, windy day, the kind of day that has you chase your trash cans down the street early in the morning, after crossing parts of your driveway that threaten to slip you up. While groggy, because recent days have been such an intense combination of rain, snow, and meltage that your trusty sump pump works very hard to remove water from the lower reaches of your house — and decides to noisily kick in just after midnight. Keeping you (me) awake long past the point at which you (I) wanted to be awake.

But at least I heard about an historic event today, something that hasn’t happened in almost 600 years; rarer than a Transit of Venus, though the resignation of a pope could be more common if the popes wanted it to be. Naturally, that sent me to reference works to look up the likes of Gregory XII, the last pontiff to voluntarily kick off the shoes of the fisherman. That was during the Great Schism, something you don’t hear much about in the news (it’s old news, after all).

The fine Historical Atlas of the World (Barnes & Noble Everyday Handbooks, 1970) has a map called the Great Schism 1378-1417 on half a page, and it’s instructive in the way maps can be. Some areas are purple: “Adherents to the pope in Rome,” such as England, all the Scandinavian kingdoms, Hungary, Poland, and the Italian states. In green, “Adherents of the pope in Avignon,” including Castile, Aragon, France, Scotland, and the Kingdom of Naples. The sprawling, non-centralized Holy Roman Empire is in gold, listed as a region of “Undecided Allegiance.” No surprise there, but Portugal is also undecided. I don’t remember the reason for that, but maybe they were trying to annoy their fellow Iberians in Castile and Aragon.

So who’s to be the next pope? Does Benedict XVI want to be alive to influence the choice? Perhaps to push for a “nephew” for the job? No, papal intrigue isn’t quite what it used to be. What about the next papal name? I still think Sixtus the Sixth would be a good choice.

Seem a Saint, When Most I Play the Devil

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I read today that Richard III’s bones have been located. I didn’t know they were missing. But then again, the story of Richard III pretty much always ends with, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Arrrrrrgh!” as some fearsome halberd makes contact with the king’s skull. After that, who cares?

Naturally, there are those who would rehabilitate the monarch’s evil reputation. The NYT article notes: “Among those who found his remains, there is a passionate belief that new attention drawn to Richard by the discovery will inspire a reappraisal that could rehabilitate the medieval king and show him to be a man with a strong sympathy for the rights of the common man, who was deeply wronged by his vengeful Tudor successors. Far from the villainous character memorialized in English histories, films and novels, far from Shakespeare’s damning representation of him as the limping, withered, haunted murderer of his two princely nephews, Richard III can become the subject of a new age of scholarship and popular reappraisal, these enthusiasts believe.”

Naaah.

I was also interested to learn that the king will probably be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral, against the wishes of those who would put him in Westminster Abbey or some such. Not that anyone’s asked me, but I’d go along with Leicester Cathedral. In London, he’d be just another king – albeit a hunchbacked, villainous one – among many. In Leicester, he’d be a star attraction. He’s served his country for centuries as an infamous villain of lore and literature, time now for him to promote tourism to the Midlands. If I’m ever anywhere nearby, I’ll go pay a visit.

Thursday Salmagundi

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While working on an article the other day, I came across a press release that said in part: “Seminole Classic Casino, the first Native American Casino in the country, today celebrated its grand re-opening…. Seminole Gaming CEO Jim Allen provided welcoming remarks and historical background of the casino, while Good Times television personality Jimmie ‘J.J.’ Walker warmed-up the crowd with Tribal and 1970s trivia.”

Jimmie Walker. Now there’s a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. I hope the Seminoles paid him a reasonable amount. Even has-beens have to make some kind of living. 1970s trivia? Such as, “What was Jimmie Walker’s catchphrase?” I’m not going to repeat it here. If you know it, you know it. If not, leave it be.

Snippet of recent conversation:

Ann: “Lance Armstrong, he’s the one who went to the Moon?”

Me: “No, that was Neil Armstrong. He was a test pilot, astronaut and explorer. Lance Armstrong is a guy who can stand riding a bicycle for hours and hours.” (Link includes salty George Carlin language.) (And if you’re going to sit on a bike for that long, maybe you need the drugs.)

I was toying with the idea of reading only books that I already own this year. Got a fair number on the shelves that I haven’t gotten around to, after all. But I was at the library the other day and that notion flew out the window. I was looking for The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey  (Candice Millard), which is about TR’s expedition to one of the remotest of the Amazon’s tributaries in 1914, but it was checked out, so I checked out 1920: The Year of Six Presidents by David Pietrusza.

Not that there were six serving U.S. presidents in 1920, unlike the four emperors of AD 69. Just one: Wilson, a shadow of his former self by then. But the book promises to track TR (odd, since he was dead by 1920), Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and FDR and their involvement in the 1920 election. I’ve only read a few chapters. So far, not bad, but Pietrusza has a few annoying writing tics, and I’ve spotted a couple of small errors. The Armistice did not, for example, take place at 11:11 am.

I’m going to stick with it for now, because 1920 was a pretty interesting year in this country, besides for the election of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge: the last of the Palmer raids and the Red Scare, the beginning of Prohibition, the Wall Street bombing, the final push to secure women’s suffrage, and the first commercial radio station on the air, whose first broadcast concerned the results of the election. Among other things.

I just looked up salmagundi, long a favorite word. Never looked into its origin before. I’d have guessed it was one of those words the English language picked up in British India. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? “Sahib, the salmagundi is served.”

But no. My American Heritage New College Dictionary tells me it’s from French, salmigondis, and before that, origin obscure. Just another one of the French food words, then. Maybe next time I’ll call a jumble like this a gallimaufry, another good word that needs more use, also with a Frenchy origin.

Honour’d and Blest be the Evergreen Pine

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Bitter cold this morning. At about 6 a.m. both Yuriko and I heard a loud pop from the direction of the back yard. I thought it was something hitting the something else nearby, she thought it was an “explosion.” She was right. The night before I’d neglected to take in some of the soda cans that had been chilling on the deck, and one of them exploded. Even now bits of frozen soda linger on the planks.

As usual, the Atlantic has gathered together a remarkable set of photographs about a theme – in this case, the inauguration yesterday. I was surprised by how fast it was up, since I first looked at them at about 8 p.m. last night (some have been added since then). That’s a lot of pictures to upload and, especially, caption.

I was glad to see Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter looking (pic 22) so remarkably hale. The Clintons were also there, as to be expected, and I can understand why the ailing George HW Bush wasn’t in attendance. What’s up with his son, who also wasn’t there? We can give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wanted to be with his father. Or maybe he figured, eh, been to too many already, which would probably include his father becoming vice president and president, his own inaugurations, and the 2009 inauguration.

Just before 11 a.m. yesterday, I made sure both of the girls were with me to watch a bit of the event, even though it was really just for show, the actual swearing in having occurred in the Blue Room of the White House the day before. Just for show, but important. It’s churlish to begrudge any president the rituals of inauguration, whatever you think of his politics. A highly visible and ritualized transition, even if it’s a second-term transition, helps maintain the stability of the government. President Adams might have been peevish in not attending Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, but at least he didn’t try to stop it.

Noisemaker, Noisemaker, You Have No Complaint

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Pauline Phillips was still alive? Maybe I was confused by the fact that Eppie Lederer’s been dead a while. I think both of them were in the San Antonio Express-News in the late ’70s, and I would have been hard-pressed to say who was who after I’d read the columns. That notion would probably have aggravated the sisters, and their editors, and in fact anyone who believes readers care about bylines, which they do not, but that’s source amnesia for you.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have admitted reading Ann Landers and Dear Abby back in high school, but I did sometimes, and intermittently for years afterward. They were windows into worlds where people had problems I had no inkling of, back before people-with-weird-problems became a staple of 24-hour television.

Pictured: a recent moment of ordinary interaction between Ann and I, which for some reason I liked when I saw it. I didn’t know Lilly was taking the picture when she took it.

Speaking of things supposedly gone, I recently bought a box of chocolate cupcakes under The Snack Artist brand, which belongs to Safeway. They look and taste exactly like Hostess Cupcakes, down to the Jack Lew signature squiggle on top, except they’re a bit flatter. So I’ve done my little part to confirm that as far as consumers of insanely sweet snack cakes are concerned, not much was lost with the demise of Hostess. (Jobs were destroyed, of course, but that’s another matter.)

Back again on Tuesday, after MLK Day and the 57th Inauguration ceremony, which is different from the number of swearing-ins, since not all holders of the presidency began their terms on March 4 or January 20. This is the seventh time that the constitutionally specified inauguration day falls on a Sunday, with the public ceremony the held next day. James Monroe set that precedent in 1821 after checking with John Marshall, who signed off on the day’s delay.

The last time was on January 21, 1985, during an intense cold spell that affected much of the country. Heavy snow had fallen in Nashville, and I didn’t have to go to work. I didn’t have a TV at the time, so I listened to the event over the radio. It was so cold in DC that the swearing in was in the Capitol Rotunda.

More on Fibber

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After mentioning Fibber McGee yesterday, I found an episode of Fibber McGee & Molly online and listened to it in segments, between everything else that I had to do. It’s been a while, but I’ve heard the show before on WDCB’s old-time radio program. The particular episode I just heard, dating from early 1941, deals with Fibber erroneously believing he’s been drafted. It didn’t include his closet.

Most of the comedy stems from the disbelief of various characters to Fibber’s news. He had been, after all, “in the last war.” (Something about working in a kitchen the whole time; no one called it the Great War, but there was a mention of Gen. Pershing)  The show holds up better than some (much) radio comedy from the era. The oddest thing to modern ears is the way one of the characters lapses into talking about the sponsor, Johnson Wax.

And when did linoleum become so important as a flooring? The late 19th century, come to find out, so that few listeners in 1941 would have remembered a time without it. To hear Johnson Wax tell it, of course, keeping your linoleum floors clean and shiny is a top priority.

Fibber McGee’s Garage

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Winter warm through most of Friday and Saturday – in the 50s at times – and then freezing rain came on Saturday night, followed by normal January temps again plus ice. Not major ice, just enough to leave thin sheets underfoot here and there, which I coated with sand. Why isn’t sand more popular for dealing with icy patches? It doesn’t melt the ice, but it neutralizes the slip danger, which is what matters.

But I couldn’t deal with the ice sheet on the Sienna with sand. Lilly wanted to practice some driving on Sunday, so I made her chip parts of the ice off the windows with me. If you’re going to have a car in the North, and a two-car garage organized by Fibber McGee so that only one car goes in there, you’ll have to de-ice your car windows sometimes.

I wonder how long Fibber McGee’s closet will be a widely understood reference. Or has it already passed into obscurity, and I didn’t get the memo? It’s easy to ignore that kind of change. I do it all the time. Then again, you can’t ever know what’s going to die out in the age of YouTube. (This is cheating, since it isn’t the radio show, but it’s still worth a link.)

My Fellow Americans

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There’s been a run of presidential birth centennials lately, and by lately I mean since 2008. LBJ was born on August 27, 1908, Ronald Reagan on February 6, 1911, and Richard Nixon came into the world 100 years ago today. Later this year we’ll see the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leslie Lynch King Jr., better known as Gerald Ford (July 14).

One more centennial this decade: JFK in 2017. That one’s a little hard to wrap one’s mind around. Die young, stay pretty. After that, no more centennials until 2024, both the elder George Bush’s and Jimmy Carter’s.

I have wispy memories of Lyndon Johnson as president, but Nixon’s the first president I really remember. You might say Nixon’s the one. I remember hearing about him, of course, and seeing him in the papers and on TV from time to time, and the way he’d start by saying “My fellow Americans…”

The time he announced he was releasing transcripts of the tapes he’d made stands out; I have a vague impression of him looking sweaty and less than sincere under the lights. He came off that way a lot. I think that particular speech stands out because I was visiting a friend’s house when that speech came on, and they had a color TV, which we did not.

In the summer of ’73, Uncle Ken and Aunt Sue — good Democrats, they were — visited us in San Antonio, and I think it was my brother Jim who asked them what they thought about President Nixon. I remember Ken’s answer clearly: “He’s guilty as hell.”