September 23

One of the pillars of my understanding of how the world works was The Jetsons, which premiered on September 23, 1962. Considering the amount of space The Jetsons have rented in my head it was somewhat unsettling to discover that the show was only on the air, in its original run, for 24 weeks. It went off the air on March 3, 1963. Heck, Kennedy wasn’t even dead then. I’m not one to easily subscribe to conspiracy theories, but let’s look at the timeline: March 3, 1963, the Jetsons are canned; October 7 Hurricane Flora hits Haiti and the Dominican Republic killing over 7000; October 9 the Vajont Dam in Italy collapses and more than 2000 die; October 14 the British Press coins the phrase Beatlemania; November 2 South Vietnamese President Diem is assassinated, November 9, an explosion in a mine at Miike, Japan kills 458 miners, November 22 President Kennedy is assassinated. I really think Congress should look into just who was behind the cancellation of The Jetsons and those people should be held accountable.

September 22

In the Seventeenth Century, Fall was never a particularly joyous time for the residents of Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They had a lot to deal with: between unstable production of crops and increasing conflicts with Native Americans due to the rate at which the European population was increasing and the increasing internal strife among the settlers themselves things were pretty much touch and go for the European outcasts who were struggling to establish a hard-line Theocracy in the New World (Think Lebanon with out the rocket-propelled grenades). Almost as if they were looking for new ways to make life brutal for themselves the Witch Hunts of the period were fast reaching a fever pitch. It would be nice to think that the whole Witch thing just had to work its way out of their systems but that wasn’t really the case. The judiciary finally found its footing and placed some limits on what would be considered as prima facie evidence of witchcraft. Spectral evidence was no longer allowed as proof of witchcraft by the end of the century, which was a huge leap forward for these people. However, on the 22nd of September in 1692, 22 people were hanged for witchcraft. Those hung were mostly women, with a couple of men tossed in for balance I suppose. Several women escaped the noose on that day because they were pregnant. Rest assured however, the good people of Salem fully intended for them to be hung after they had given birth. How thoughtful a gesture is that? On the bright side, these would be the last executions for witchcraft in the United States and today forms the basis for an extremely lucrative tourist industry in modern Salem, Massachusetts.

September 21

As if East Hampton didn’t have enough problems with traffic after Tourist Season is over, on the 21st in 1938, a hurricane made landfall on the Eastern End of Long Island. For lack of a better name, it has come to be called The Great Hurricane of 1938. Not a particularly creative name. As far as hurricanes go this particular one was o.k. I suppose. Additionally calling it a great hurricane seems to be catering to its self-image just a bit too much. I don’t think the storm was out there seeking validation of its self-worth. Calling it great isn’t nearly as good as giving it a person’s name because then people are limited on their merchandising opportunities, but what the heck can you do? It gets the point across. In 1938, Hurricanes were not graded the way they are today but estimates are that this Hurricane came ashore as a Category 3 storm. The storm tore Long Island apart in two places: at the Napeaque Strip and at the Shinnecock inlet. The Army Corps of Engineers chose to keep the Shinnecock inlet open, which explains the system of locks there today. People had rather gotten used to Montauk being part of the Town of East Hampton and the opening of the island at Napeaque was allowed to close thus reuniting Montauk and East Hampton. The National Weather Service puts East Hampton and its neighbors in a 100 Year Zone. According to their best estimates, every hundred years a storm will come along that pretty much wipes the Island clean. Unfortunately, the prevailing thought is that the Hurricane of 1938 was not that storm so my guess is that the East End is long overdue for a storm that makes Hurricane Katrina look like a gentle spring shower.

September 20

Born Robert of Geneva in 1342, Bob eventually settled into a career path which would in the fullness of time lead to his becoming Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some, rather arbitrarily it seems, either Bobby or the Butcher of Cesena. Bob devoted a great deal of energy to his clerical work and a bunch of upstart French Cardinals ultimately elected him, on the 20th in 1378, at Avignon, to the papacy. The dear boy assumed the name Pope Clement VII. He was never able to get clear title to the seat of St. Peter and wasn’t the first to use the Clement name, and he would not be the last to use it. Bob’s election in Avignon marked the beginning the Western schism, which was a rather unpleasant time for Roman Catholics and French people in general, and pretenders to the papacy in specific.

September 19

On the 19th in 1985, Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore, together with three other women, all of them married to prominent Washington, D.C. figures, formed the Parents Music Resource Center. This was a group that wanted to censor pop music and remove all objectionable material from music that was available to impressionable children. It has yet to be confirmed that they discovered that when Pat Boone’s 1956 hit “Gee Whittaker!” is played backwards Boone was actually singing, “I am the anti-Christ and I’ve come for your children and cuddly house pets.”

September 18

I have always subscribed to the adage “If at first you don’t succeed, try, and try again.” That can be the only explanation for my doing this sort of thing day after day, month after month, and (when January rolls around) year after year, ad nauseam. Apparently, Peg Entwistle did not. She was a young actress looking to hitch a ride on the rocket to stardom that she hoped was in Hollywood. She had some success on the stage but found it difficult to break in to movies. On the 18th of September in 1932, when she was only 24 years old, Ms. Entwhistle climbed to the top of the letter H in the Hollywood sign and jumped. She did not survive the fall. When police arrived to investigate the suicide, they found that her clothes were very neatly folded at the base of the sign. It is sadly ironic that the Hollywood sign originally read Hollywoodland, and was a crass advertisement for a housing development that failed.