December 2

John Breckinridge was born on the 2nd in 1760 in Staunton, Virginia. At the time, Staunton was considered to be a frontier town, which could have held him apart from great opportunities. He was however a bit of a whiz kid and managed to attend the prestigious William and Mary College. Further evidence of Breckenridge’s remarkable abilities may be found in his election to the Virginia legislature when he was only 19 years old[i]. One explanation might be that he got a bunch of very good genes from his parents. In his later years, he would serve in the United States Senate, develop a prosperous law practice, and found Castleton Farm, one of the more notable farms in American thoroughbred racing history. His remarkable talents would follow down in his family line. Breckenridge’s great-great-grandson, Bunny Breckinridge[ii] (pictured) would achieve a similar level of success when, in 1958, he appeared as ‘The Ruler’ in Ed Wood’s masterpiece Plan 9 From Outer Space, arguably the worst movie ever made.

[i] Talk about stamina. Breckinridge, at the time of his first election to the Virginia House of Burgesses was under the legal age for the seat and he would have to be elected three times before he could legally assume the position.
[ii] In 1959, Bunny spent a year in the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane for a bit of nastiness involving two underage boys and an excursion to Las Vegas.

December 1

In an election held on November 28, 1919, Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, was elected to the British House of Commons. Lady Astor was the first woman elected to serve in that august body. She assumed her seat on the 1st in 1919. Whatever her contributions to the political life of Britain, and there were many, she should also be remembered for having observed, “The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you.”

In a wonderful verbal exchange with Winston Churchill, Astor said to Churchill “If I were your wife I'd put arsenic your coffee!” to which Churchill replied ”And if I were your husband I'd drink it!” In the 1950s she would use this line in a conversation with Senator Joseph McCarty. There is no record of McCarthy’s response but there are indications that it did not go over terribly well.

November 30

Getting, and staying, ahead of the curve can be a full-time job. Here is one schlemiel who had both the time and the money to do just that. On the 30th in 1786, Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsbourg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, decreed a penal reform abolishing the death penalty. His was the first state to do so.

November 29

The campaign to make November 29 a federal holiday begins now! On the 29th in 1944, Dr. Alfred Blalock (pictured at left) and Vivien Thomas, a surgical technician (pictured at right) performed the first surgery on a human to correct a condition known as blue baby syndrome. The patient was Eileen Saxon. Sadly, Eileen only survived for two months after the surgery. While working their way up to performing the surgery on humans, Blalock and Thomas also developed a means of correcting aortic coarctation. I think that was a really cool thing for them to have done. From what I have been told by qualified medical professionals, it appears that the aorta is a somewhat important piece of hardware and finding cardiac spare parts can often prove to be problematic. It’s a bit like having an MG and discovering one afternoon that you need a driveshaft for it. I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to have a decent parts supplier readily available. Oh, and a hospital would be nice, though in a pinch I imagine that a vacant table at an International House of Pancakes would probably be an adequate substitute for a sterile operating room, so try not to be too fussy, o.k.? Once you locate a good source for spare parts always keep that person on your Christmas card list.

November 28

On the 28th[i] in 1989, in response to the Velvet Revolution (pictured), a non-violent political movement, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia relinquished its monopoly of power in that country. Researchers have thus far been unable to establish a connection between the Velvet Revolution and Slash’s band Velvet Revolver and it appears to be unlikely that the revolution drew its name from the band.

[i] I am adult enough, though just barely so, to recognize that love comes with a price tag attached to it. As Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sagely observed in Hang Fire: “Marrying money is a full-time job, I don’t need the aggravation I’m a lazy slob.” I wonder however what £40 was worth in 1582 because that is what William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway paid for a marriage license on the 28th in that year.

November 27

On the 27th in 1703, the first Eddystone Light[i] was yet again destroyed by what came to be known as the Great Storm of 1703. Personally, I fail to see what was so darn great about it. O.K., O.K., that is it, you can relax now. I know you were worried but I’m not going to insert the lyrics to that song[ii] here, though I am sorely tempted to do so.

[i] The current lighthouse is the fourth one, the others all having been destroyed by a variety of means.
[ii] I wish to state unequivocally that my father was not the keeper of the Eddystone Light. He did not marry a mermaid one fine night. From that union there did not come three. I categorically deny that there was a porpoise. There was no porgy and the other was certainly not me.

November 26

The 26th in 1862 was a watershed day for Charles Dodgson. He was a writer, known to us as Lewis Carroll. It was on that day that he sent his handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to Alice Liddell. As you must know, the book was published and became wildly popular and is still in print today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, both the original and annotated versions. It has been some time since I read it however and there are parts of the delightful book that I simply do not recall. If you are more familiar with the book than I am, I would greatly appreciate your taking a moment and sending me an email telling me just what it was that the dormouse said. While logic and proportion may have fallen sloppy dead, I am reasonably certain that the dormouse did not say ‘Feed your head’ as the Jefferson Airplane insists it did. Additionally I would also like to know if the White Knight was really talking backwards and, if he was, what exactly was he saying?

Alice Pleasance Liddell, Lewis Carroll’s niece, was the inspiration for the character Alice. When Liddell was 80 years old, on a visit to New York, she met Peter Llewelyn-Davies, who was one of the boys who inspired J. M. Barrie to write Peter Pan.

November 25

If you are ever tempted to complain about bad weather, try putting whatever it is you want to complain about in its proper perspective. Is it a bit of rain? Perhaps some snow? Toads falling from the skies? Although lately the latter doesn’t happen quite as often as it used to, so that probably won’t come in to play. In any event, before you start frightening small children with your rants about the weather consider the fact that on Thanksgiving Day, the 25th, in 1926, there was an outbreak of 27 tornadoes in the Midwest of the United States that ranged in strength up to F4. So don’t start complaining about a couple of days of rain, o.k.?

Heber Springs, Arkansas was the municipality hit the hardest, with 51 known deaths in that town alone.