October 8

Scratch any serious writer and under the surface you will find a lawyer struggling to break free. In most cases, if you look in the bottom right hand drawer of most writers desks you will invariably find a gavel and a very distinguished black robe just waiting to be worn. Englishman Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones and numerous other pieces, was no exception. Fielding died on the 8th of October in 1754. After a brief fling with writing for the theater, Fielding ventured in to the practice of law. He experienced some success in the field and in 1748 became a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster. Among Fielding’s many contributions to English jurisprudence was the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of Colley Cibber for “murder of the English language.” A cursory reading of Cibber’s autobiographical “An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber”, published in 1740, is prima facie evidence of Cibber’s guilt.

October 7

I am not a particularly enthusiastic fan of any sport. Well that isn’t exactly true, I do enjoy watching a rousing game of curling but that comes up only every four years during the Winter Olympics. I have difficulty following most sports and cannot seem to make it through an entire game without either falling asleep or randomly tossing things at the television set. I suppose I should just grit my teeth and do my best to get through an entire game but I find that difficult. Persevering through difficult tasks builds character or so I have been told. When I need to have that bit of wisdom illustrated for me I always pull out my handy copy of the Georgia Tech yearbook for 1916 and find myself freshly inspired to put my shoulder to the wheel and soldier on through whatever it is that I find troublesome; I suggest that you do the same. You are of course free to choose another source of inspiration but whatever you choose to do I strongly caution you that under no circumstance should you browse through Tennessee’s Cumberland University’s year book for 1916. On the 7th of October, in 1916, Georgia Tech played a game of football with Cumberland University as its adversary. I am puzzled as to why nobody attending the game broke out the rifles and simply shot everyone on the field because the final score of this contest between the champions of those two colleges was 222-0, with the victory going to Georgia Tech

October 6

Martin Behaim was born on the 6th in 1459. As an adult, he acquired a stellar reputation as a navigator and geographer. Actually, it would be far more accurate to say that he manufactured a stellar reputation for himself. He was in the habit of taking credit for the accomplishments of others. His work as both a navigator and a geographer, upon scrutiny, had about as much to do with Behaim’s work as Clifford Irving’s autobiography of Howard Hughes had to do with Howard Hughes. There was only one problem with Behaim’s claim that he introduced the cross-staff, a rather primitive astrolabe, to Portugal. A minor problem really: Levi ben Gerson had done that little number in the late 14th century or early 15th century. In Behaim’s defense, however you have to give him credit for dressing well and he had great hair and those qualities more than make up for all of his academic failings.

October 5

You don’t expect me to eat that do you?
President Truman was the first sitting president to address the nation by the means of a live televised broadcast when he went on the air on the 5th in 1947. In this address, he used his time to urge his fellow Americans to not eat meat on Tuesdays or poultry on Saturdays. His reason for this request was to help people starving in other countries. I haven’t been able to ferret out the story behind his very specific request that Americans avoid meat and poultry. Why didn’t he pick liver and Brussels sprouts? If these people were really starving, they would pretty much eat whatever was put in front of them wouldn’t they?

October 4

On the 4th in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, with a single shot from his starter’ pistol,[1] started the ball rolling for his eponymous calendar, which is the calendar predominately used to this day. As jaded as we have become we take many things for granted. For instance, we assume that October 4 will be followed by October 5, which in turn will be closely followed by October 6, and then 7, and so on and so on. Well until October 31 of course since October only has 31 days, though that may very well change if I have anything to say about it. Such was not always the case. In 1582, October 4 was immediately followed by October 15. If you had a busy social calendar in the latter days of the 16th Century and had scheduled an event for October 11, you were probably going to lose your security deposit because in 1582 there would simply not be an October 11. Don’t even think about rescheduling for the 15th because it is amazing how quickly things sell out.
[1] considering all that has been happening in the last few weeks, perhaps it might be best to leave out references to the Pope and firearms, even if the reference is centuries old.

October 3

When do my fifteen minutes start?
For Dayfdd ap Gruffyd, Prince of Gwyedd, his started on the 3rd in 1283 when, according to reliable sources, he became the first person to have been executed by drawing and quartering. In all likelihood he probably survived the drawing part, which if done properly can take an extraordinarily long time, but there is absolutely no chance that he survived much beyond that. The quartering is always effective on the first try. The international response to this development was swift and decisive and resulted in a total blockade of the importing of vowels to Wales.

October 2

Julius Henry Marx was born on the 2nd in 1890. He achieved success, both financially and artistically, as Groucho Marx. He and his brothers formed The Marx Brothers, largely responsible for perfecting ad-lib comedy. Groucho lived long enough to become the lynch pin in a mid-twentieth century political movement which exerted great influence over the affairs of many nations. I am referring to, of course to the ideology of Marx and Lennon.

October 1

Charles Cros, a French poet and inventor, was born on the 1st in 1842. As an adult Cros, working independently, sorta kinda, maybe developed a means of recording and playing back sounds. He was apparently too busy being French and writing poetry to do much about it however and Thomas Edison, on January 15, 1878, beat him to the patent office. He was immortalized however when France named its equivalent of the US Recording Academy L’Acedmie Charles Cros.