January 03, 2008
New Hampshire Primary Redux
The non-stop coverage of the election that won’t end will soon turn its focus from Iowa to New Hampshire. The thought makes me nostalgic for those halcyon days when I too was a newsman covering the presidential candidates in their glorious quest for the best home-office in America.
The year was 1988, and I was a producer for a Boston TV station. The wise elders there generally kept me inside the newsroom, chained to a desk, where I could provide brilliant direction for those poor souls out in the field. My job was to offer reporters guidance in their never ending search for Truth, or if Truth was in short supply, at least something to fill a minute and a half on the 11 o'clock News.
But as the 1988 primary season began, the powers that be deemed it important for me to expand my horizons. So I was sent up into the great rolling stretch of suburbia that constitutes southern New Hampshire to help cover the first in the nation New Hampshire Primary. Here was my chance to put all my years of education and accumulated political acumen to work.
My first assignment was to field produce a live interview with Bob Dole. I poured him a glass of water, fixed his tie, and reminded him what state he was in. A real test of my skills!
On my second day I interviewed Mike Dukakis. He told me he was not a technocrat. For some reason my bosses weren't interested in this piece of exclusive news. So instead we showed a picture of Mike Dukakis whistling. I didn't know what he was whistling, which suggested to me the need to beef up my investigative reporting skills.
On Day three I was assigned to cover Vice-President Bush on his whistle-stop bus tour through Southern new Hampshire. Up until then I wasn't even aware that busses had whistles. The first event was at a truck stop where I was able to observe the vaunted national media in action. They all crowded into the gift stories like a gang of drunken Hells Angels, and bought hats with four letter words on them. Hats that said: “S___ happens.” The vice president thought the hats were funny, and couldn't stop giggling at them. That of course was not news. Then he climbed into an 18 wheeler and drove it around the parking lot, with Secret Service men hanging off the side. That of course was news. I complimented myself that I could tell the difference.
After three days of generating this hard-hitting political coverage, the station suddenly decided to send me back to Boston. I was too valuable inside, they said, to waste my considerable talents outside. What a shame. I was just getting the hang of it.
Now I watch from the sidelines. Never again will I adjust Bob Dole's tie, or chase the Vice President around a truck-stop. But I remain proud of my unique contributions to the American political dialogue.
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2008
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
We went to see the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets last night. The critics have generally panned this film (“Can you imagine how dreadful the National Treasure movies would be if Nicolas Cage weren’t in them” sniffs the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr) but I must confess that I fell for the first one and I like this one even more. How could I fail to love two films that make history and historians central elements of a good-time global romp!
This sequel intersects my own life in so many places I began to think it had been made just for me. There was a painful book signing—a unique form of self-torture I have engaged in numerous times. There’s a sequence shot at Mount Vernon—a place where I just recently shot a short film, which will shown there as part of a new exhibit starting on President’s day. An important scene takes place during the White House Easter Egg Hunt—I just finished a piece for The History Channel on said event. It is followed by a scene in the Oval Office—I’ve been there. (Okay, I’ve stood in the doorway and looked in, but that is still pretty damn cool.)
There is also an extended sequence inside the Library of Congress, a place with which I am very familiar, having visited numerous times for research purposes. I found a terrific article about the shooting of the film, in which I learned that they used a helium balloon to lift a lighting set-up to the top of the 160 foot dome in the reading room to light it during the all-night shooting there.
The move is, of course, preposterous in countless ways. But it also is chock full of real, little known history stories, such as the tale of the Resolute Desks, which play a major role in the plot. Critics may moan and groan, but I think it is fantastic that one of the most popular movies of the Christmas season puts history and historians on a pedestal. Hoorah!
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2007
Ma Yu CHing's Bucket CHicken House
I like history. I like Chinese food. And I like Chicken. So imagine my delight today while reading the book Ancient Inventions (casting a net for stories for my next book) I read about Ma You Ching's Bucket Chicken House, supposedly the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the world. It allegedly opened for business in the year 1153 in the Chinese city of Kaifeng, and has never closed since.
Now I am using words like "supposedly" and "allegedly" because a quick search of the net turned up a Wikipedia entry which suggested that there is a lack of solid evidence backing up this claim. The book cites several sources, and everybody seems to agree that there have indeed been restaurants open in this time since the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) so it seems very possible.
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
Op Ed Piece in Politico
The New Hampshire Primary: Was it’s “First in the Nation” status consecrated by a crusading band of constitutional angels? Or does its origin have more to do with a man named Winston Churchill?
Check out my op-ed piece “Granite doesn’t last forever” on today’s Ideas page of the new online publication The Politico.
BTW, The Politico is a multi-media publication launched in January, 2007 with the mission of covering the politics of Capitol Hill and of the presidential campaign, and the business of Washington lobbying. It has proven fabulously successful at drawing online readers and making a name for itself.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2007
Blowin' in the wind...
How much do you think the weather vane at left might be worth? It is made out of molded copper and dates back to 1910. Pick a high number, double it, then keep reading.
The Lexington Historical Society owned this weather vane for years. It used to sit upstairs at Buckman Tavern, leaning against an old bed, in the part of the house used for storage. No one paid a great deal of attention to it. I have been a part-time guide at the building for several years, and have walked by it on the way to the bathroom numberless times, usually without a second glance.
The Historical Society decided this year to “de-accession” the weathervane from it’s collection. In other words, to sell it. A very sensible decision, since it is not connected with the Society's main effort, to interpret the story of April 19,1775 through our historic houses. And the sale might generate some much need money to help fund upcoming restoration/renovation projects.
Auctioneers at the Skinner Auction House in Boston suggested that the weathervane might sell for as much as 30-50 thousand dollars.
They were wrong.
The weather vane sold at auction on November 4, 2007 for $941,000. Scuttlebut has it that the buyer was Ralph Lauren’s brother.
Wow.
(BTW, I apologize for not writing any blog entries lately, but I am back on the case and expect to be blogging a couple of times a week. Cheers!)
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2007
Cousins: That's Nothing!
I chuckled at the news last week that Barack Obama is related to Dick Cheney. The two are eighth cousins, both descended from a Huguenot French ancestor in the 1700’s. A spokesman for Obama claimed with a finely tuned barb that Cheney is the “black sheep” of the family. But the strange connection between these political polar opposites comes as no surprise, given the plethora of quirky incidents buried in the back-stories of our country’s presidents.
George W. Bush, for instance, is related to Franklin Roosevelt, Humphrey Bogart, and Alec Baldwin. (Who would the black sheep be in that family?) All are descended from John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, who came across on the Mayflower in 1620. And none of them might have had a chance to be born except for a dramatic rescue at sea on the Mayflower that saved Howland from sleeping with the fishes.
Imagine the jokes if the first president of our country (not to mention the nation’s capital) were named Hertburn. It could easily have happened. Back in 1183, the King of England gave a knight named William De Hertburn the village of Wessyington in return for his services. De Hertburn showed his gratitude by changing his name to Wessyington. (It probably didn’t take a lot of convincing.) Over the years that became corrupted to...oh I think you can guess…Washington. And so we were saved from “Hertburn, D.C.” Although we still get heartburn over what happens there.
It isn’t only presidents’ pedigrees that hold such tasty pieces of history candy. There’s the things they did while they were working their way up to the top job. Grover Cleveland was a hangman. Abraham Lincoln took part in a duel—the broad sword was his weapon of choice. Lyndon Johnson effectively launched his political career in a bathroom—with no toe tapping. Richard Nixon engineered a break-in at law school. Jimmy Carter once filed a UFO report. And Jerry Ford was a glamorous NY model. (No, I’m not making that up. He was actually on the cover of Cosmo back in the day, and also had a spread in Life magazine.)
And let’s not overlook their behavior while they were in the White house. John Quincy Adams liked to swim naked every day in the Potomac. Sometimes people came out and hid behind the bushes to watch. (That would be quite a tourist draw today.) Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the gospel; apparently Mathew, Mark, Luke and John weren’t quite enough for him. Woodrow Wilson raised sheep on the White House lawn to demonstrate his support for the troops. (In case you’re wondering, the sheep meant that the Wilsons could reduce the size of the landscaping crew, and also sell the wool for charity.) No mention if there were any black sheep there.
What are the odds, you might ask, when looking at the cousinage of Obama and Cheney? But what are the odds that a president could have someone walk up to him, try to fire two pistols from eight feet away, and have both of them misfire? It happened to Andrew Jackson, and experts say the odds were 125,000 to one against it. About the same as the odds that Dick Cheney will someday appear on the Daily Show with John Stewart. What, for that matter, are the odds that one president could have had his life saved by a song, another by a speech, and another by a movie he made 42 years earlier? Yet each of those things happened.
It’s the same for the candidates as it is for the 43 men who have held the nation’s highest office. (50 men if you include the 7 presidents before Washington, but that’s another story.) We know what makes them famous. It’s what we don’t know that makes them endlessly fascinating.
For more interesting presidential tales, check out my new book The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told.
Posted by rickbeyer at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2007
Charlie Siringo
A cool piece of history candy about a cool character from the American West, Charlie Siringo, can be found on my sister's blog, Choosing Santa Fe
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2007
Facing the Truth
An article in today's New York TImes details the work forensic sculptor Sharon Long is doing to help solve a murder mystery in Florida. 
Sharon was featured in our documentary Secrets of Jamestown, where she was reconstructing the face of an early settler killed by a musket ball.
Sharon's been doing this a long time, and she is really quite amazing. The article details some of the techniques that we profiled in the show.
Posted by rickbeyer at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2007
The Epidemic
229 years ago, the Childs Family of Lexington, MA was in the midst of a terrible tragedy. There is a remarkable gravestone in the Lexington Burial ground that tells the story,
Abijah Childs and his wife Sarah suffered the loss of their six young children between August 19 and September 6th in 1778. The cause was presumably an epidemic...perhaps diptheria, or smallpox. This gravestone is just to the right as you walk into the main part of the graveyard.
Abijah was a member of Captain Parker's militia during the events of 1775. It would be interesting to know exactly what his children died of. To my knowledge, nobody in the Lexington Historical Society has been able to find any documentation that nails it down.
There is an interesting post on the Boston1775 blog about a similar grave relating to an epidemic three years earlier in Dedham . Check it out
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2007
1775 Blog
I have been reading a terrific blog I wanted to share with you. It's called Boston 1775, and that's what its all about. The subhead explains: History, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.
The writer of the blog is J.L. Bell, and he includes all sorts of excerpts from letters, diaries, books, trial transcripts etc. that shed light on the people and activities of Revolutionary Boston, in far more detail than you can find anywhere else. Honestly, I don't know where any one human gets the time to find and post all this stuff!
Best of all, he's been doing it for some time, and it is all indexed, cross referenced etc. to the tenth degree, so it is easy to find something that has come before.
Bell is well connected in the Boston re-enactor and historical community. I was talking to the folks at the Old State House today (we're working on a documentary with them) and they know of and respect his blog a great deal. So history lovers, check it out!!
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2007
John Paul Jones: I have not yet begun to figure out what he said!!
I am working on an article for The History Channel magazine about John Paul Jones, the Revolutionary War naval captain who commanded the Bonhomme Richard. Jones of course is famous for shouting "I have not yet begun to fight," when asked if he was surrendering during a long and blood drenched battle with the British warship Serapis.
The battle is amazing, and will make for a great article. But what interests me are all the different accounts of what Jones said. The two ships had been fighting for hours at close quarters, both were on fire, and Jones's ship was sinking. Perhaps half his crew were killed or wounded. A panicky junior officer, thinking in the confusion that Jones was dead, tried to surrender the ship by yelling "Quarter, Quarter" (a standard way of surrendering and begging for quarter--no "Parlez" here). Jones tried to shoot him, but being out of ammunition, threw his pistol at the man's head, knocking him out. (A darn good throw!)
Both crews slacked in their fire for a moment, trying to hear who might be surrendering to whom. The British captain called out: "Do you ask for quarter?"
There are various contemporary accounts of what Jones replied. Here are a few I've found so far:
"I may sink, but I'm damned if I'll strike." (Strike the flag, ie, surrender)
"No sir. I have not as yet thought of it, but I am determined to make you strike.” (A mouthful in the midst of battle!)
"Yankees do not strike their colors until they are fairly beaten." (Perhaps an unlikely boast for the Scottish-born captain fighting in a French ship)
"Whenever the Devil is ready to take me, I would rather obey his summons, than strike to anyone."
Forty-six years after the battle, Jones second-in-command, Lt. Richard Dale (by then a retired Commodore) told a biographer that Jones said "I have not yet begun to fight." And that of course is what got into the history books.
It is not surprising that there are so many differing accounts of what an officer said in the heat of battle. After all, nobody listening was in a position to write it down--they were just trying to survive the moment. What strikes me is not the fact that accounts differ as to exactly what Jones said, but that they all agree that this seemingly mythical moment of high drama in the midst of the sea battle, almost too good to be true, really did take place.
By the way, there is another John Paul Jones quote that also has some currency, though it is not as well known as the first. Offered a ship that didn't meet his standards he wrote:
"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2007
42 Days
Today is March 21. I want you to think back for a moment. Back to February 7, to be specific. That's six weeks ago, although in the midst of a hectic life it can seem eons. Can you remember what you were doing that day? Can you even begin to recount all that you have done between that day and today. All the nice meals, the car trips, visits with friends, lazy Sunday mornings, etc etc.
Now imagine that you spent all that time sitting in one spot. And imagine that spot is in an open lifeboat on the Atlantic Ocean with 28 other guys. That’s what Don Zubrod (my dad’s “kind-of-cousin”) did in 1943. The Roger B. Taney, a Liberty Ship on which he was the Purser, was sunk by a U-boat on February 7th, and he spent 42 days in a lifeboat. They sailed more than 2500 miles before they were rescued on March 23rd. Friday will mark the 64th anniversary of his rescue. The 6’1” Zubrod weighed only 140 when the ordeal began—by the time it was over, he was down to 85 pounds.
Don is alive and well and living outside Atlanta. He's 83 now. I talked to him yesterday, to tell him that an article I wrote about Liberty Ships (with a prominent sidebar about him) will appear in the May/June issue of The History Channel magazine. He mentioned that his memories are particularly strong this time of year, as he once again counts the days that he spent on the lifeboat. After the war he tracked down the U-boat captain who sunk his ship and had lunch with him! Don probably didn't eat a lot at that meal--he says that his stomach must have shrunk on his lifeboat journey, he's never really felt hungry again.
The image at left is a picture of the Taney at the Bethlehem-Fairchild Shipyard in Baltimore, awaiting it's final fittings before setting out on the brief seagoing career that would end on the bottom of the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. (If you click on it you can see a larger version).
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:01 PM | Comments (1)
February 19, 2007
The Long Grey Line
Reader Gene Visco writes to share a story he wishes I had included in The Greatest War Stories Never Told. It's a good tale,and one that I considered using. Being familiar with it, I can vouch for its accuracy. Here's his telling of it:
--
With all the wonderful tales you told in that book, I was mildly disappointed not to find my own favorite war tale. On 5 July 1814 a newly trained and equipped US Army brigade, under command of a newly brevetted Brigadier, Winfield Scott, was arrayed facing a division of the British Army in Canada under command of Major General Phineas Riall. The four regiments of Scott's brigade (25th Infantry, 11th Infantry, 9th Infantry, and 22nd Infantry, in that order from left to right) were dressed in new gray uniforms. Gen. Riall, well aware that the uniform of the US Army was blue, believed the enemy facing him across the Chippewa River were militia, which were often dressed in gray. Knowing also, from experience, that militia did not stand and fight against well-formed enemy, Riall fully expected the opposing force would soon break and run in the face of his advancing troops. When Scott's brigade formed up and opposed his advance with controlled fire and did not break, Riall said: "Those are regulars, by God!" [That phrase became the unofficial motto of US Army infantry: "Regulars, by God!"]. In remembrance of Scott's victory at Chippewa, the Corps of Cadets at the United States Military Academy wear gray parade uniforms. Why was Scott's brigade of regular US Army infantry dressed in gray rather than the typical blue? Because the contractor providing the uniforms ran out of blue dye! The Corps of Cadets commemorate a contractor screw-up!
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2006
Mencken Quote
Came across this quote today--and yes, it's real:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
— H. L. Mencken
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2006
On the trail of the Seventh Inning Stretch
After The Greatest Stories Never Told proved to be a success, I entered into a discussion with Arielle, my agent, about possible subjects for future books in the same vein. Out of these discussions, of course, came The Greatest War Stories Never Told and the book I am working on now, The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told. But the book I really wanted to write, I told Arielle, was The Greatest Stories that Never Happened. A book debunking some of the many great history nuggets that are often reported as true, but turn out to be just urban legends. Unfortunately, she wasn’t buying what I was selling, and the idea went nowhere.
I mention this because in the past few days I have researched myself out of another great story for the presidents book. That is to say, I had a perfectly good story, but in trying to go that extra mile on research to really nail it down, I pretty much exploded the whole thing. Too bad I'm not writing the Stories that Never Happened book...this would be perfect for that.
The story concerns President William Howard Taft and the origin of the seventh inning stretch. You can read versions of this story on the web and in various books. Here’s a simple telling of it:
A baseball tradition was started in 1910 when President William Howard Taft opened the season by throwing out the first ball. In years to come, a veritable parade of presidents would follow in his footsteps.
But the 330 pound Taft, a huge baseball fan in every since of the word, is credited with popularizing another tradition during the same game.
By the middle of the 7th inning, his wooden had become unbearable… and the portly President stood up to stretch. The crowd, thinking Taft is standing up to leave the stadium, respectfully rises.
But then Taft sat down again, as did the crowd.
A presidential endorsement of a tradition that lasts 'til this day—the seventh inning stretch!
Thus basic story. But there were a couple of nagging problems that made me want to do more research.
1) There are a couple of earlier references to fans in amateur games taking a break in the 7th inning. So Taft definitely didn’t invent the idea. Still, I thought, perhaps he popularized it.
2) Some reports say this happened on opening day of 1910 in the game Philadelphia played at Washington, but other accounts suggest it happened in a Cubs-Pirates game that he went to later that year in Pittsburgh. And all the accounts were second-hand.
3) The earliest known written reference to the “seventh inning stretch” is from 1920, some ten years afterward.
I craved some firsthand information that would, if not confirm the story, at least offer some evidence on the likilihood of it.
I turned to the NY Times database, which I have access courtesy of the Minute Man Library Newtwork, and which contains complete text of the NYT dating back to the 1850’s. I quickly discovered a use of the phrase “seventh inning stretch” in a baseball article dating to May 26th, 1910, ten years earlier than anyone else had reported, and coming just a few weeks after the game in which Taft supposedly stood up and got the stretch going. This seemed promising.
Then I pored over accounts of the 1910 Opening Day game in Washington and a May 2nd game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, both of which were attended by Taft. (Ah the exciting life of a researcher.)But neither had a hint of evidence or information to offer about the going son in the seventh inning.
I expanded my search, tried some other terms, poked around here and there, and hit the motherlode. (I can’t reveal exactly how I managed it—trade secrets, you know.) Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the motherlode landed on the story like an elephant sitting on a Volkswagon Beetle, with similar results.
On September 16, 1909—the year before Taft supposedly initiated or popularized the seventh inning stretch—the president visited Chicago. By all accounts it was a splendid day. 150,000 school children lined the streets to wave at the president’s motorcade, and his luncheon speech at the Commercial Club was enthusiastically received.
Then the President made his way to the ballpark.
The ballpark in question was the West Side Grounds, the pre-Wrigley Field home of the Cubs, to see the Chicago team take on the Giants. The park’s normal capacity was about 15,000, but it was packed with twice that many people on hand to see the president. He greeted the teams and managers, then made his way to the stands. A box had been provided for him, but Taft turned it down with a remark that was to become celebrated among baseball enthusiasts. “Let me sit with fans, “ he said.
I found two descriptions of the President's afternoon at the ballpark, one in ext day's New York Times, the other in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide of 1910. The stories say the president watched with great interest. And then came the 7th inning. The Cubs were down 2-1. The two accounts pretty much match, but the one in the Spalding Guide is more colorful, so I will quote that:
…in the first half of the “lucky seventh” the Giants failed to make a run. When the last half of the seventh began and the local enthusiasts arose to their feet “for luck,” President Taft also stood up, and when the crowd saw him on his feet there was a mighty cheer from the “bleacherites.”
Here is Taft standing up in the 7th…not because he wants to stretch, but because the crowd had already stood up. And by the way it is the “Lucky 7th,” a term everyone apparently knows, so there is already something special about it. The tradition is obviously already in place…he is just joining in.
A little more research showed mentions as early as 1908 of people stretching or standing in the “lucky 7th”—which really puts the lie to the Taft story. The truth most likely is that the story of Taft joining in the seventh inning stretch got turned around, and a myth was born.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—The Taft story has struck out.
Sources: “Big Welcome to President,” New York Times, September 17, 1910 ,p 1
“President’s Day at Chicago,” Spalding Official Baseball Guide, 1910, pages 51 and 53 (Found on Library of Congress website)
“Fans at the Polo Grounds,” New York Times, October 5th, 1908.
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2006
Wire Recorder and old radio
I bought a wire recorder on Ebay not too long ago. It is the predecessor to the tape recorder. It records sound on a wire about the diameter of a fishing line. (When I play it for people, they can't believe that the sound is actually recorded on this thin wire. But it is, two feet per second. It is magnetized, just like audio tape.)
I bought it for demonstration purposes—wire recorders were used by the Ghost Army in World War II. This particular machine is a Webster-Chicago post-war model, from about 1952.
It came with about 30 spools of wire that already had recordings on them. I have been making digital copies for preservation purposes. I don't think any of them are one-of-a-kind recordings, but why take a risk? Many of them are high quality recordings of old CBS radio shows, including some I've never heardof, such as "The Paul Masterson Show"
One spool, unlabelled, contains a recording of longtime Santa Anita racetrack announcer Joe Hernandez calling the last race run by the famous racehorse “Seabiscuit.” This was the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap.
You can listen by clicking here.
It sounds like it might have come off a record. I found another recording of the end of the race online, and it sounds a bit different in tone than this one. It may have been recorded on a different mic, or the differences may be due to the way each was reproduced, the number of generations they have gone down, etc.
Anyway, it was a fun find. If anyone has more information about an of these recordings, I would be glad to hear it.
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2006
Vietnam Symposium
A few weeks ago Marilyn and I attended a Vietnam symposium at the JFK Museum. THere were lots of heavy hitters there, and I was taking notes of things they said, so here are the quotes of note that came out of it.
"I find myself in an awkward position at events like this, the audience will expect me to be as eloquent as JFK was, forgetting that he had a far better speechwriter than I do."--Ted Sorenson, JFK's longtime speech writer
"There comes out of Iraq the sour odor of the same aromas we smelled in Vietnam."--Jack Valenti, former aide to Lyndon Johnson
"No party has a monopoly on incompetent crisis management."--Former Secretary of State General Alexander Haig
"We are in the midst of another struggle where we don't seem to have learned very much."--General Alexander Haig
"I'm not smart enough to know how to get out of Iraq, just like I wasn't smart enough to know how to get out of Vietnam."--Jack Valenti
"I came here as a refugee. I thought it was important for America to maintain it's position in the world. I tried to bring about the best solution possible." --Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, explaining that he had "no regrets" about how he handled Vietnam.
"All Wars are inhumane, brutal, callous, and filled with depravity."--Jack Valenti
"To be a TV correspondent in Vietnam was to be a hitchiker, and you could hitchike anyplace you wanted to go."--Former CBS News Correspondent Dan Rather
"For all their sacrifices, American troops in Vietnam were irrelevant. The war wasn't ours to win or lose."--Frances Fitzgerald, author of the pullitzer Prize winning book Fire in the Lake
"This nation's freedom is not being well served by Congress abdicating it's checks and balances (in reference to Iraq)."--General Wesley Clark
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2006
Thanks but No Thanks
Here's one I ran across today. In 1903, the CHicago Tribune asked Robert Lincoln (son of the president, and himself president of the Pullman Company) for a picture they could use occasionally in the paper. Let me quote from his reply.
I read the Tribune daily and it is one of the minor pleasures of life left tome that I can open the paper feeling sure that I am not to be confronted by a portrait of myself.
He declined the request.
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2006
Baseball Poetry (and history)
I’m working on the presidents book (suggestions welcome) and one of the possible stories is about President William Howard Taft originating/inspiring/popularizing (take your pick) the seventh inning stretch. One of the things my research turned up was the following NYT article that contains what may be the first ever mention of the phrase "seventh inning stretch" in print. It is a May 26, 1910 article about a White Sox Yankees game. It appears a about a month after Taft supposedly initiated the maneuver on Opening Day of that year.
But what’s really cool is the way the article is written. I’ve reproduced the first four graphs below: Read it out loud: It’s poetry! It’s literature! It’s wonderful! If only writers penned baseball articles like this today. Sadly, the article is unsigned, so I have no idea who wrote it.
The Yankees shut out the White Sox on the Hilltop yesterday by a 5-0 score, the campaign being commanded by Russell Ford, who twirled a brand of gilt-edged ball which is not at large very often during a season. He had unerring control of his damp toss, which broke and jumped over the plate in all sorts of angles. Between Ford’s fingers and thumbs the ball took on a lot of “English” as it spun from his hand, and the Chicago batsmen strained their shoulders trying to bang it. No use. Willie Hoppie in his keenest moments never caromed the billiard ivories off the cushions with any more skill than Ford bounced the pellet off the White Sox sticks in such a way that it tripped merrily to the zones where there was always a Yankee watching on duty.
Just centre your glims on what Ford did, and then you will be sorry you didn’t pawn your watch and mingle in the crush that Subwayed up. Only twenty-nine Chicago batsmen faced Ford. From the first inning until two were dead in the ninth, the Sox went out in one, two, three order. Gandil in the first, and Purtell, in the second, each picked off a single, and each of them were bold enough to try to steal second. The elongated whip of Ed Sweeney snapped nicely, and both runners were stabbed with the ball long before they reached the mattress. Zeider singled in the fourth and took a big lead off first. Sweeney had the ball down to Chase in a jiffy, and caught Zeidler while he was yet snoring. After 25 men came to their end successively, Collins was sent in to bat as a last hope. He planked the ball to centre for two bases, and Zeider followed with a single.
Collins might have saved Chicago the humiliation of the whitewash bath but for the fact that he ran from second to third with all the speed and grace of a mud-turtle, and there he stuck. He had enough time to roll a cigarette and light it before the ball got back from left. The Sox were not only almost hitless yesterday, but they were also nearly motionless.
Laundry note: The white hosiery which adorns the Chicago calves are rapidly fading to dark black.
And that's a decade before the Black Sox scandal! For baseball history buffs, here is the reference that led me to the article in the first place:
Ford cut short the seventh inning stretch by lamming a hot one to left. Pat Dougherty fell all over it and Ford got to second in a canter.
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:36 PM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
Image of the Week: Christmas Truce
A story in the news that the last surviving veteran of the World War I "Christmas Truce" died today. Here's an excerpt from the Retuers wire story:
LONDON (Reuters) - The last known surviving allied veteran of the Christmas Truce that saw German and British soldiers shake hands between the trenches in World War One died Monday at 109, his parish priest said.
Alfred Anderson was the oldest man in Scotland and the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war.
"I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence," he was quoted as saying in the Observer newspaper last year, describing the day-long Christmas Truce of 1914, which began spontaneously when German soldiers sang carols in the trenches, and British soldiers responded in English.
I write about the Christmas Truce in my new book. Some people think it is a myth, but it really happened--and many of the soldiers involved took photographs of themselves with the enemy to prove it,like the picdture at right from the Imperial War Museum.
It was early in the war, and the message of "hate your enemy" hadn't quite been drilled into the two armies. Soldiers came out of the trenches to exchange toasts, trade cigarettes and liquor, even play soccer games. The men themselves were as surprised as anyone at the sudden outbreak of peace. "Most peculiar Christmas I've ever spent, and ever likely to" wrote one British soldier. "Fancy a German shaking your flapper...and then a few days later trying to plug you" said another. One German soldier wrote in delight about a soccer game played between the two armies: "We Germans really roared when a gust of wind revealed that the Scots wore no drawers under their kilts."
The next day, they got back to the important business of killing each other.
Posted by rickbeyer at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005
JFK Story
Last night Marilyn and I saw Dan Fenn speak at athe Lexington Historical Society event. Fenn is a longtime Lexington resident, a former staffer for JFK, and Founding Director of the Kennedy Library. He told some very amusing JFK stories I had never heard, including this one:
Nikita Khrushchev presented JFK with a beautiful hand-made model of a sailing ship. The FBI and Secret Service went over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure it didn’t conceal any bugs, after which the President put it in a place of prominence in his office. But presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell was never quite convinced that the ship was “clean,” so every time he walked past it he would lean into it and whisper loudly: “Screw You Nikita!”
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2005
Monkey Business
Newsflash:
LONDON (AFP) - A bone found on a north-east beach has sparked renewed interest in one of England's most curious myths -- that a monkey washed ashore during the Napoleonic Wars was executed by suspicious locals for being a French spy.
Police in Hartlepool, on the County Durham coast, confirmed Friday that the one foot (30 centimetre) long bone found on a beach last month was not human, but came instead from a monkey or gorilla.
The discovery has intrigued locals, given the town's curious folklore from the Anglo-French Napoleonic conflict, which lasted from 1793 to 1815.
According to popular legend, a monkey dressed in a French uniform was washed ashore at Hartlepool and tried by local magistrates on suspicion of being a French spy.
Because it did not answer questions they presumed the animal was guilty, and it was hanged from a lamppost.
Thanks to Dave Palmeter for bringing this story to my attention. Of course, for the legend to be true, the townsfolk of Hartlepool would have to never seen a monkey or a frenchman before. Not bloody likely!!
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2005
"Tip-off" vs. "Tap-off"
A few days ago my wife, Marilyn Rea Beyer, who is an announcer at Boston radio station WUMB, came across a wire-service sports story that said that the "tap-off" of that nights Celtics game would be at such-and-such a time. She called me up.
"Have you ever heard of a tap-off" she said. "I always thought it was tip-off." I was unable to offer any definitive answer.
Several times over the course of the next week we heard sports announcers use the expression "tap-off," occasioning much grumbling by Marilyn, who was convinced they should be saying "tIp-off." This morning I phoned her at work to tell her of a sports report I heard on the radio concerning the commencement of the NBA Finals tongiht which referred to the "tip off, or tap-off, whicher you prefer."
"It must be some kind of recent usage" said Marilyn, who rightly prides herself on her knowledge of the English language "I never heard that before this week."
"Tip-off" vs. "Tap-off." I was quickly off to the historical databse of the New York Times, which offers full-text NYT articles going back more than 150 years, a time which predates the invention of basketball. Here, I was sure, I would find the answer. And I did.
What I found is that in the New York TImes, "Tip-off" is used about ten times as often as "tap-off" in basketball related stories. But "tap-off" is no new usage. I found basketball stories referring to the "tap-off" that dated back to 1925.
My favorite in this group was a wonderfulstory dating from Feb 5, 1929. The headline: 'Abolition of the Tap-off from Centre urged at College Basketball Meeting in Ithaca." Here's the excerpt that caught my eye:
"The coaches were unanimous in the opinion that the tap-off as at present constituted places a premium on the height of the centre and is obviously unfair and discriminatory toward a team not possessing a tall man." Truer words were never spoken.
Marilyn took the news with good grace, though after ruminating on it for a while, she said that it must be an east coast thing.
"They certainly never said "tap-off" in Chicago!"
I guess its off to the archives again...
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2005
Election Night Gem
I was screening tapes of election nights past at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York this week, as part of the research for a new book. Among several gems I found was a priceless moment from the CBS election night coverage in 1956, the first election night broadcast hosted by a not yet world famous Walter Cronkite.
As Cronkite updates the returns in the Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential race, he holds an earphone to his ear just like Garry Owens used to do in Saturday Night Live. Behind him, many young men in suits stand on a catwalk, apparently working on some kind of giant tote board that we really can�t see. Then Cronkite transitions to the next segment. �Now let's go over to our Univac Corner and DOuglas Edwards� says Cronkite. Cut to a shot of Douglas Edward sitting in front of several giant magnetic tape drives, with a huge Univac computer console to his left. But Edwards isn�t quite ready to speak to us. In fact, he�s on the phone. Nor does he hang up when the camera comes to him. There is a slight pause as he listens, and replies �Yeah. � Then he hangs up the phone with a very gentle�almost intimate�� bye.� Only then does he turn to camera and say in his TV voice: �Just checking on time, Walter, I get two minutes to tell you about the latest Univac projections on the Presidential race�.�
In this early use of computer projections, the networks don�t quite have the language down. Edwards refers to the computer projections as �guesses,� which, while accurate enough, would probably drive modern TV managers crazy.
Later on in the broadcast, I kid you not, it looks as if a janitor walks in behind Walter as he is talking and empties the trash!
TV aint what it used to be!
Posted by rickbeyer at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Bay-State Geography Trivia
What famous California city was named after a town in Massachusetts? And what western city could have been called Boston if an 1845 coin-toss had gone the other way?
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:52 AM | Comments (3)
May 16, 2005
Jeffferson and God
I came across this quote from Thomas Jefferson the other day that I really like.
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
What a calm, commonsense sentiment. The exact same thought also applies to marriage. Tomorrow we celebrate a year of gay marriage in Boston, and if the social fabric has been rent asunder, I must have missed it.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
History in the News: Yalta and Indians
President Bush recent comments that the 1945 Yalta Treaty contributed to "one of the greatest wrongs of history" has riled up historians and bloggers alike.
But the Boston Globe reports an even more fascinating "history in the news" tidbit this morning. It turns out that a 1675 state law that bans Indians from entering Boston (unless they have the permission of the Governor) is still on the books. Because of that, a group of minority journalists (Unity: Journalists of Color) may not hold a convention here.
Dan Lewerenz, president of the Native American Journalists Association, says: "We know its not going to be enforced, but in theory, the police could arrest us when we arrive at the airport." There's a wild thought.
State reps are falling all over themselves to see if they can repeal the law before the jouarnlist�s group makes a final decision.
Here's the actual law:
"We find that still there still remains ground of Fear, that unless more effectual Care care be taken, we may be exposed to mischief by some of that Barbarous Crew, or any Strangers not of our Nation, by their coming into, or residing in the Town of Boston. . . . Secondly, That there be a Guard appointed at the end of the said Town towards Roxbury, to hinder the coming in of any Indian, until Application be first made to the Governor, or Council if fitting, and to be . . . remanded back with the same Guard, not to be suffered to lodge in Town, unless in Prison."
I wonder who dug this up: most likely someone with an interest in keeping the convention from coming to Boston.
"Barbarous Crew," by the way, is a great name for a rock band.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
This Day in History: The Old Man's Vote
The old man had never voted.
He was 75 years old, and he had never voted. Not once had he cast a ballot. Not in a presidential election, or in a school board race, not ever...
He had been very involved in public service during his long life. Founded youth groups, worked in community organizations, done some writing. He had lots of friends, many children and grand children. But he had never voted in an election.
Now there are many reasons not to vote, some good, some bad. In the old mans case, lets just say the time was never right for it.
But then, in his 75th year, he did something he had never done before. He got up on election day, went to the local polling place with some friends, and cast his ballot. 75 years old and he was voting for the first time ever.
And he felt great about it. The act of voting made him feel more powerful, made him feel more in control of his own destiny. When he got home, he couldnt stop talking about it.
Now if the story ended here, it would be a simple, heartwarming tale of a man who late in life discovered what a wonderful feeling it is to exercise your right to vote. But this story is much more than thatfor two reasons.
To begin with, the old man lived in South Africa. And the reason he had never exercised the right to vote was because his country had never given him that right. He had gone from boyhood to old age, but because he was black, he had never been considered good enough to vote, had never been permitted to enter a polling place and cast his ballot.
But on this April day of 1994, that was a thing of the past. Now the laws of the land were different. Peoples thinking was different. And this old man, born less than a year after the end of World War One, was finally able to vote.
Imagine the rush of emotion. The powerful feelings that must have swept through him, simply because he was now able to perform this simple act of self-expression that all democracy is built upon. What a glorious feeling it must have been.
But I said he underwent two experiences that most of us will never know. And the second is perhaps more astounding than the first. Because you see, when the old man voted, for the very first time, he voted for himself. For president. In the knowledge that millions of others, also voting for the first time in their lives that day, would cast their ballots the same way. Thus making this old man, Nelson Mandela, the first African President of South Africa, a country that had never allowed Africans to vote until that day.
Nelson Mandela was inaugurated 11 years ago today, on May 11, 1994.
Posted by rickbeyer at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
This Means War!
Wars can start for the strangest of reasons
On this day in 1857, a bloody uprising in India known to history as the Mutiny was triggered by the introduction new kind of rifle. Loading the Enfield rifle required soldiers to bite the end off of a grease-covered paper cartridge. Word spread among Indian troops serving in the British army that the grease contained fat from pigs and cows, meaning that biting the cartridge was a sacrilege to both Hindus and Moslems. Indian sepoys rose up and killed their British officers, who they thought were trying to turn them into religious outcasts, and thousands died in the fighting that ensued.
When conditions are right for war, the most trivial event can set off a conflict: three men being thrown out a window; a sea captains ear being cut off; a pig being shot; even a soccer game. (These are all stories featured in my forthcoming book.) Its the same as a forest that has gone too long without raina single match can spark an all-consuming conflagration. A lesson we should strive to remember.
Posted by rickbeyer at 07:38 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2005
The First Computer Bug: A real bug!
Whenever I come across a particularly fascinating story, I like to file it away for future reference. This is is a gem that some people know about, but many others do not. After it came up in conversation last week, I thought I would post it.
The very first computer bug was, in fact, a bug: a fried moth discovered blocking the contacts on a relay in a Mark II computer at Harvard in 1945. With an eye to posterity, perhaps, the woman who found it pasted it into the computer log. Her name was Grace Murray Hopper, and her tale is a fascinating one in its own right. For more on all of this, check the Image of the week page.
Posted by rickbeyer at 01:23 PM | Comments (2)
May 02, 2005
Gallipoli
This April marked the 90th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli...here's a thoughtful and fascinating note about that from a friend in Australia:
We have just celebrated ANZAC Day here in Aus and NZ. It is the celebration of the battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish peninsula, the dardinelles where in WW1 the allied forces including many thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops landed, and died, on the peninsula in the wrong place and badly organized by the English, including Winston Churchill.In Australian language 'it was a total stuffup by the poms.'Turkey has kept an area on the peninsula as a memorial to all of the dead. Bill Easton, my husband's father was a signalman at Gallipoli and survived.
The good thing is that, these days, thousands of backpackers, young aussies and nzers, turn up at Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25 to seewhere the incredible, but futile, sacrifice of those young soldiers took place.
During this terrible massacre the Turks and the ANZAC's met and struck a truce for a ceasefire while they buried the dead. Quite amazing but they also threw food into each other's trenches. It was when we ceased to be just convicts, or colonials, and realized we were as goodas them, 'the poms.
This year we were all interested in the different speeches by the Australian and NZ dignitaries. NZ, of course think for themselves, not in Iraq, rather unusual in these times. Our Australian Prime Minister, in bed with George Bush and Tony Blair, was very low key and diplomatic but the NZers were not. They were very candid in their speeches on the battle and disaster, alluding to the ineptitude of the English war council, prime minister and generals and praising the Turks for their courage and sacrifice defending their own land. The Turks were at the ceremony as well. How good was that?
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
Surrendering to Creationism
Scientific American: Okay, We Give Up
We feel so ashamed
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Albert Einstein and a Pretty Girl
I noted in the paper this morning a mention that this year marks the 100th anniversary of Relativity. Einstein supposedly explained the complex theory this way:
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity."
The other day I came across a wonderful flight of fancy based on that quote
Scientific American: Einstein's Hot Time
Great theoreticians know that hypothesis must be confirmed with experiment.
Enjoy!
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)