From the Archives: Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday

Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday
February 6, 2011 9:45 AM MST

The 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Virginia is still a year away, but potential nominees from both the Democratic and Republican parties are taking advantage of the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan to associate themselves with the conservative icon.

Jim Webb

Incumbent Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat who has not yet announced whether he will seek re-election, served as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. According to the Washington Post, he sent a letter to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, encouraging the state’s chief executive to honor the Reagan centennial.

"More than twenty years ago, President Reagan inspired this nation after a period of extraordinary turmoil and self-doubt," Rosalind Helderman quotes Webb as saying. "I believe it is entirely fitting that we reexamine his legacy today as our nation faces serious challenges at home and abroad."

On Friday, McDonnell issued a proclamation designating February 6 as “Ronald Reagan Day” in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

George Allen
Webb’s 2006 opponent, former Governor and Senator George Allen, who recently announced his intention to take back his old seat, sent an email to supporters with his own reminiscences of Reagan.

Allen notes that he first met Reagan when the latter was governor of California and that he had served as chairman of Young Virginians for Reagan during the nomination campaign of 1976.

Allen goes on to say that Reagan “knew that to unleash America's potential, people must be unburdened by government interference, unrestricted by onerous taxes and obstacles to innovation and creativity, and unobstructed by incentive-sapping laws and regulation. By using Ronald Reagan's faith in foundational principles we can confront the challenges we face in our nation, state and local communities and again unleash the unique potential of the American Dream.”

Jamie Radtke
Allen’s only announced rival for the 2012 GOP Senate nomination, former Tea Party leader Jamie Radtke, also released a statement on the occasion of Reagan’s 100th birthday.

“Just as President Reagan kept alive the ideals of the Founders,” Radtke says, “the modern-day Tea Party movement has revived the ideals of Ronald Wilson Reagan, even as the political party he led wandered from those principles, with disastrous results.”

Taking credit for a return to Reagan’s values, Radtke goes on to say that “the Tea Party movement, of which I have been a proud member, has driven a resurgence of the Republican Party in Washington centered around Ronald Reagan's principles of smaller, Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, free markets and virtue and accountability.”

There have been reports that other candidates who may enter the 2012 Senate race in Virginia include Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) and Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 6, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Virginia businessman Tim Donner relates ‘eerie’ memory of 9/11 in New York City

Virginia businessman Tim Donner relates ‘eerie’ memory of 9/11 in New York City
September 10, 2012 7:38 PM MST

Like all Americans who were old enough to comprehend what happened on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, Northern Virginia businessman Tim Donner has vivid memories of that day. His recollection, however, includes what he calls a “chilling coincidence” that borders on the eerie.

Donner is the owner of Horizons Television in Great Falls, Virginia, which specializes in documentary, educational and promotional video production, and founder of One Generation Away, an educational and public policy organization. He was a candidate for the U.S. Senate before withdrawing from the race and endorsing Republican nominee George F. Allen. He also contributes commentary to the online journal of news and opinion, Bearing Drift.

It was his role as a video producer that placed Donner and his wife in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Remember the Regency

As he related the story to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in a telephone interview, “[we] were in New York on business that day doing a historical documentary for a longtime client and we were staying at the Regency Hotel.”

The significance of the name of the hotel and “why that fits into the story,” he added parenthetically, would become clear “in just a little bit.”

Continuing, he explained, he and his wife got their “gear together for a video shoot that day and as we head out the door, the doorman at the hotel says a plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

Unperturbed by that news, Donner figured “that perhaps this was a light plane, similar to one that had flown into the White House months before that, so we didn’t make much of it.”

So they went about their business and, once they arrived at their client’s office, he recalled, “we sat there and watched on TV live as the second plane hit the World Trade Center.”

‘Chill up my spine’

At that point, he said, like so many others, “we realized we were under attack and at that moment it struck me -- it struck me hard, it sent a chill up my spine -- that I had been to the Regency Hotel [just] three or four times in my life.”

His first visit to the Regency, he said, was when he was about eight years old: “The first time that I had been there was having lunch with my grandparents on November 22, 1963.”

On that occasion, Donner said, “a waiter came up and told my grandmother, ‘The president has just been shot.’”

Two seminal moments

Tim Donner

The spinal chill he felt eleven years ago, he explained, “came from the sudden realization that I was in exactly the same spot on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, that I was on September 11, when we were attacked in New York and Washington.”

Those dates, he went on, “are the two seminal moments that anybody our age will remember for the rest of their lives. They’ll remember where they were and what they were doing.”

For Donner, “this is a coincidence of incalculable proportions,” he said, “because you couldn’t even set any odds upon being in the same place for both of those events, especially when it was some random hotel that I’d not been to more than three or four times in my life.”

That coincidence, he concluded, “was eerie, to say the least, because the chances of that happening were so astronomical as to be off the charts. The realization of that just makes one wonder about larger metaphysical questions.”



Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

What Was Daily Life Like on December 7, 1941?

Seventy-five years ago today, an attack on a remote American naval outpost – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – rousted the United States out of its confidence in its own isolation from the world war that was already two years old.

True, politicians and military leaders were expecting an attack sometime soon. The date and time were unknown, but relations with Japan had deteriorated enough that some kind of assault was considered inevitable.

On the home front, however, people went along in their daily lives, made somewhat nervous by news reports from the war zones. Recovery from the Depression was moving along, although the pre-war growth of defense industries was largely unacknowledged as a stimulant.

Conditions on the home front during World War II have always been fascinating for me, more than the war overseas. This may be because, as a child, the stories I heard from my parents – who were still children in the 1940s – and my grandparents – who did not serve in the Armed Forces – were all about the war at home: ration cards, civil defense drills, shortages of consumer goods, scrap drives. Movies like Woody Allen’s Radio Days or Meg Ryan’s Ithaca pull at me.

So on this anniversary of the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor, I want to look at the normalcy that was disrupted that Sunday morning. For this, I turn to three historians.

Five years ago, I reviewed a book by Stanley Weintraub called Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941. Here’s an excerpt:

I picked up Pearl Harbor Christmas by chance at a local bookstore and bought it on a whim, thinking that it primarily would focus on the home front in the weeks following the Pearl Harbor attack and how Americans adjusted their holiday celebrations to the new realities of having been thrust into war.

The book has some of that, and Weintraub is able to draw an adequate picture of what the Christmas season of 1941 was like.

Wartime black-out rules had not yet dimmed Christmas lights, and Christmas trees themselves, Weintraub says, “were plentiful, seldom priced at more than a dollar or two.” Rockefeller Center presented its annual Christmas show, featuring the Rockettes, and people were still reading comic strips and going to the movies.

“The hit book for Christmas giving,” he writes in a prelude, “at a hefty $2.50, was Edna Ferber’s Reconstruction-era romance Saratoga Trunk. For the same price, war turned up distantly yet bombastically in a two-disc set of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, performed by Artur Rodzinski and the Cleveland Orchestra.”

Weintraub goes on to list the prices of crates of citrus fruits (“$2.79 at Bloomingdales”) and new cars (“soon to be unobtainable”) for $900. Silk stockings were $1.25 a pair, and nylon stockings – which would also quickly disappear as the fabric was needed for parachutes – were $1.65.

In a clever turn of phrase, he writes about upscale clothing shops:

“Hattie Carnegie’s designer dresses began at $15. The upscale Rogers Peet menswear store offered suits and topcoats from a steep $38. (At recruiting stations nationwide, the army was offering smart khaki garb at no cost whatever to enlistees.)”

Craig Shirley, who is best known for his books about Ronald Reagan, wrote December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World. In his chapter on “The Seventh of December” he describes the normal atmosphere that prevailed even in the Hawaiian Islands that day:

Most American newspapers Sunday morning were by and large quiet when it came to the Pacific crisis. The Honolulu Advertiser was covering local news involving housing issues, a display by the Shriners, and the typical international war news coming from Russia, Germany, and England. There was also a special feature on where children could see Santa Claus – from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. that day – in front of a fake fireplace in the lobby of the newspaper. Another front-page story reported on the newly formed “Razor Blades for Britain Committee in Hawaii,” which was taking up a collection because blades could no longer be purchased in England as all steel was being devoted to their war effort. “All razor blade donations … must be new,” the story cautioned.

Inside, stories and features favorably reviewed the movie A Yank in the R.A.F.; announced clipper tours between Hawaii, the West Coast, Midway, Wake Island, and the Philippines; and detailed the ongoing prostitution problems on Hawaii.

Note how all those Pacific places would become acutely known in the coming year.

Half a world away, Shirley notes what was going on in the nation’s capital:

In the Washington Star, only one story was devoted to the Far East while the rest of the war and foreign news was about the Russian Front, North Africa, and the North Atlantic. The other news of the day covered sports, the weather, traffic reports, human-interest stories, metro articles, editorials, and columns. The most human of human-interest stories ran across the wires on Sunday morning about the death of a ninety-seven-year-old man, “Ray Fritman, who had spent a lifetime seeking his true identity…. He became lost during a parade in New York in 1852 and never saw his parents again.” He got his name from an orphanage in New York, fought in the Civil War, and later taught school in Indiana.

(I interviewed Craig Shirley about December 1941 at the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book.)

In God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War, a book entirely about the home front (and about an even narrower niche than that), historian Kathleen E.R. Smith of Northwestern State University of Louisiana also writes about the morning of December 7:

Earlier that fall and winter of 1941, when America’s war against Japan had not yet begun, preparations for the holiday season had overshadowed the threat of war. On the first Sunday of December 1941, newspapers carried the usual pre-holiday stories and advertisements. The New York Times filled dozens of pages with gift suggestions. W & J Sloan invited shoppers to visit their “Gay Main Floor” for Christmas presents that ranged from crystal seahorse bookends at $3.95 a pair to a $160.00 coffee table made from a drum used in the War of 1812. The Davega Music Company reminded shoppers of the big sale on Emerson “Miracle Tone” table radios at $34.95. Liberty Music Shop extolled the Deluxe Capehart radio-phonograph as “a time-proved record-changer that turns the record for listeners.” It played twenty records (forty selections) on both sides, providing three hours of uninterrupted music. Prices started at $595.00.

Newspapers weren’t the only medium that revealed more about the normal than the nervous. Smith recounts what the entertainment media had scheduled for the day:

December 7, 1941, began for most Americans as another early winter Sunday morning. Radio programs on the major networks for Sunday afternoon offered a wide choice for the listener: popular music (Sammy Kaye’s Sunday Serenade); drama (Great Play’s version of Inspector General); symphonic music (the New York Philharmonic with guest pianist Artur Rubinstein); pro football (Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New York Giants); and current events (Wake Up America’s panel discussion on “Can There Be a Substantial Reduction in Nondefense Expenditures of the Federal Government?”). And in a twist of irony that would not go unnoticed at the time, on their 5:00 p.m. show the Moylan Sisters planned to sing a favorite tune, “The End of a Perfect Day.”

At the beginning of December 1941, Americans had no idea how long they would be at war. Fortunately, World War II lasted less than four years, unlike the perpetual war that has engaged us since September 2001. Yet, culturally, those four years continue to fascinate and inform us.

Cross-posted from Bearing Drift, where this essay first appeared in slightly different form and under a different headline.

Has It Been Ten Years Already?

Today marks the tenth anniversary of my blogging life.

Starting here on December 17, 2004, this writing platform has expanded to include Book Reviews by Rick Sincere, Where Are the Copy Editors?, Bearing Drift, and the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, with a few smaller projects along the way. The orbit of this blog includes three YouTube channels (see the sidebar to your left).

By coincidence, I produced several interesting blog posts on December 17, without making explicit reference to its being a blogoversary.

By far the most popular of these has been one from last year, headlined "Obligatory Dylan Sprouse Nude Selfie Blog Post." To date, that report on the former Disney Channel star's naked mishap and his deft handling of it has been viewed 4,723 times, which is a pretty good rate.  It's remarkable how interested people are in seeing a celebrity's genitals.

On this date in 2007, I noted that that was the ten-year anniversary of the blog itself.

Quoting Kai Ryssdal, the host of the public radio show, Marketplace, at the time:

The blog is celebrating an anniversary today. Ten years ago a guy named Jorn Barger coined the term "weblog" to describe his website Robot Wisdom. It was shortened to "blog" two years later by someobody else.

Back then only about 23 websites were properly considered blogs. These days, whether you write them or read them, blogs are a pretty common pursuit.

Estimates are that 120,000 new ones are created everyday. No word, though, on how many are actually read.

There are a lot more than 23 "weblogs" today, that's for sure.

The most-viewed post on this blog was "Snowpocalypse!," a collection of photos from the big snowstorm of December 2009 -- published, coincidentally, on December 18.

The second most popular post is an oddity: "Shirtless and Circumcised," which traces strange search terms that lead readers to this blog.

Other blogoversary posts have included "Christmas Carols: The Odd and the New," a review of the Daily Telegraph Book of Carols, also from 2009.

On December 17, 2006, I took the Washington Post ombudsman to task for sloppy writing in "Small Pool."

Two years later, I reported on the progress of the breathtaking recount in the razor-thin race between then-Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Rocky Mount) and future former Congressman Tom Perriello (D-Ivy) in "Fifth District Recount Continues."

Only once, nine years ago, in 2005, did I make an explicit commemoration of the start of my blogging in "Anniversary Waltz." In fact, for a long time, I thought my blog-start was on December 22. I had to look up the correct date as I prepared for this post!

Let's hope I have at least ten more good years of filling this space with compelling words arranged in sentences and paragraphs.

Cheers!

Upcoming: Ten-Year 'Blogoversary' / Requested: Your Comments

Nine years and 11 months ago today, I posted my first blog entry, which said, in part:

It took a while, but I've been sucked into the world of bloggers.

I have two primary purposes in publishing this blog: (1) to comment on current affairs and cultural events, including theatre, music, movies, and books and (2) to archive some of my old writings on what-were-then-current affairs and cultural events (you know the rest).

In the near-decade since then, I have accomplished all that and more.

My own blog presence has expanded to include Book Reviews by Rick Sincere, Where Are the Copy Editors?, and Sub-Saharan Monitor.

By invitation, I joined the terrific team of political reporters and commentators at Bearing Drift.

I began submitting articles to Examiner.com, sometimes drawing unexpected attention (from, for instance, teachers' unions and Senator Mark Warner).

To be sure, my blogging has become more spotty over the years. My first full year of blogging, 2005, included 317 individual posts, nearly one per day.

That number declined to 200 in 2006 and to 187 in 2007, before rising again to 257 in the election year of 2008. The number dropped again to 211 in 2009 and 101 in 2010, before a series of double-digit years in 2011 (53), 2012 (22 -- my first year with Bearing Drift), 2013 (59), and just 38 posts so far this year.

While we're doing the math, it's noteworthy that -- by coincidence, not design -- this is my 1,500th blog post on this site.

While thinking about my upcoming tenth anniversary as a blogger -- December 17, 2014 -- I thought I'd invite readers to point out their own favorite entries.

In the comments section, below, tell me what you've liked best among the 1,500 posts on Rick Sincere News & Thoughts (a title I've never really liked, but I got stuck with it early on). If you want, tell me what post you liked least, and why.

If you're really appreciative, feel free to leave a tip (left-hand sidebar) or buy something through my Amazon.com affiliate program.  Or check out my Amazon author page.

Finally, to honor my "blogoversary," I'm going to try to post something at least once each day through the month of December. The last time I did that was October 2013.

So -- what do you think? Don't hold back. Feel free to say anything.

Ronald Reagan's Centenary

You'd probably have to live under a rock to be unaware that this coming Sunday marks the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan.

The former president was born on February 6, 1911, and the centenary celebration began on his birthday last year.

An outgrowth of the Reagan Legacy Project (which gave us, for instance, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington) and of the regular programs of the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, the 100th-year commemoration will continue for as long as people have good things to say about President Reagan.

So expect it to last for a long time.

Americans of all political stripes are offering their memories and gratitude for the life and career of President Reagan.  I'll offer two examples here.

Today Governor Bob McDonnell issued a proclamation that designates February 6, 2011, as "Ronald Reagan Day" in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Here's the text:

WHEREAS, President Ronald Wilson Reagan served with honor and distinction for two terms as the 40th President of the United States of America; winning reelection in 1984 with nearly 60% of the vote and carrying 49 states; and

WHEREAS, in 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President, he faced a disillusioned nation shackled by rampant inflation and high unemployment; and

WHEREAS, during Mr. Reagan’s presidency he worked in a bipartisan manner to enact his bold agenda of restoring accountability and common sense to government which led to unprecedented economic expansion and new opportunities for millions of Americans; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Reagan’s commitment to an active social policy agenda for the nation’s children helped lower crime and drug use in our neighborhoods; and

WHEREAS, President Reagan’s commitment to our armed forces contributed to the restoration of pride in America, her values and those cherished by the free world, and prepared America’s Armed Forces to meet 21st Century challenges; and

WHEREAS, President Reagan’s vision of “peace through strength” led to the end of the Cold War and the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union, guaranteeing basic human rights for hundreds of millions of people around the world; and

WHEREAS, Ronald Reagan’s inherent love of this country, faith in our people and confidence in freedom, renewed the confidence and vitality of our great nation; and

WHEREAS, February 6, 2011 will be the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth and the seventh since his passing;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert F. McDonnell, do hereby recognize February 6th, 2011, as RONALD REAGAN DAY in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

Log Cabin Republicans have also got into the act.

In a news release dated today, the primarily-but-not-exclusively-gay GOP group (a Kinsey 5?) said:

“Log Cabin Republicans join conservatives at home and abroad in remembering President Ronald Reagan’s powerful legacy as a champion of freedom,” said Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director, R. Clarke Cooper. “As we embark on the 112th Congress and Republicans seek to continue the success of the 2010 election, it is our hope that the GOP will recall Reagan’s wisdom in calling for a big tent Republican Party. As he said, ‘my 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy.’ President Reagan was able to craft a broad coalition of support around the fundamental principles of smaller government, a confident foreign policy, and an optimistic faith in American individualism. Today’s Republican leaders would be wise to follow in Ronald Reagan’s footsteps by ignoring calls for ideological purity tests that Reagan himself couldn’t pass and instead uniting around Reagan’s core principles, including that inclusion wins.”

Log Cabin Republicans traces its connection to Ronald Reagan to the 1978 Briggs Initiative, a California ballot initiative that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in the state’s public schools. In order to combat this initiative, a group of gay Republicans reached out to then-former governor Ronald Reagan, asking him to oppose the ban. Reagan joined with Log Cabin Republicans, arguing that the ban was “not needed to protect our children” and that if it passed, “innocent lives could be ruined.” The Briggs Initiative ultimately failed.

(About this time last year, I posted video from CPAC in which Craig Shirley talked about the Briggs Initiative and how Reagan's action was motivated by his libertarian impulses as well as his fundamental sense of fairness and humanitarianism.)

For those who want to learn more, there are dozens of books about Reagan, his presidency, and his legacy.  For those with less time than they'd like, the Washington Times today published a 14-page special section that, perhaps presciently, includes a full-page ad for Senator Rand Paul's new book about the Tea Party movement.

I suggest that, if you do nothing else to celebrate Ronald Reagan this Sunday, at least raise a glass in a toast between the commercials during the Super Bowl -- unless you prefer to wait until the special zombie episode of Glee.

Pop One for Me, Please

It's Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

Who knew?

It turns out that people have been celebrating the useful (but sometimes annoying) packing material for nine years now, in anticipation (I guess) of the 50th anniversary of the invention of Bubble Wrap in 2010.

According to the Christian Science Monitor -- which used to be available as packing material itself, until it went on-line only last year:

Sealed Air Corporation's Bubble Wrap, like Kleenex, Post-Its, and, well, Snuggies, has come to occupy one the rarest gems of consumer acceptance: adoption of its brand name as the generic term for the product. And because an Indiana radio station decided it nine years ago, today, the last Monday in January, is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, a day when folks the world over are encouraged to pause, ponder, and, well, pop little plastic bubbles of air.

CSM points to a web site to aid the celebration: BubbleWrapFun.com, which includes "Fun & Games," a "Gift Shop," and "1001 Uses." And, of course, Bubble Wrap has an official Facebook page.

All that's left is for you to rush to your nearest office supply store, buy a roll of Bubble Wrap, and tease your dog for hours on end.

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Twin Anniversaries

It would be a shame if I let this month end without first acknowledging two December anniversaries that mark important milestones in my life.

In December 1999 -- ten years ago -- I moved to Charlottesville from Arlington. At the urging of my friend, Eric Strzepek, I bought a house here. (It was only a coincidence that Eric was also my real estate agent.) The closing was actually in October, but my move-in did not occur until the weekend of December 10.

It's hard to believe, but in those years before the housing bubble burst, I was able to obtain a 2,200-square foot house for a price substantially smaller than the one asked for the 800-square foot condominium I had been living in since early 1990. I haven't looked at real estate listings in Arlington lately, but I suspect that, even with the threefold increase in value of my house, it would still be cheaper to buy in Charlottesville than in Pentagon City.

The second anniversary worth noting could also be called a blogoversary: On Friday, December 17, 2004, I began blogging. Some 1,215 posts later, here we are.

How about that?





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Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Let's all join together in wishing a happy birthday to President Barack Obama.

President Obama was born at 7:24 p.m., exactly 48 years ago today, in Honolulu, Hawaii, just about two years after that former U.S. territory became a state.

At the time, according to contemporaneous newspaper accounts, the infant Obama's parents resided at 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu.

President Obama shares a birthday with English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, jazz great Louis Armstrong, actress Lauren Tom (also born in 1961), baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, and Cole and Dylan Sprouse, the now-17-year-old stars of Disney's The Suite Life on Deck and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

Although we have policy differences -- and who doesn't? -- the president deserves all good wishes on the anniversary, not only of his birth, but of the day he became a U.S. citizen.



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Happy 100th, Vivian Vance!

Today would have been the 100th birthday of television's foremost second banana -- I hope that is not taken as an oxymoron -- Vivian Vance, who served as an anchor to Lucille Ball's loose cannon on two comedy series of the 1950s and '60s, the beloved I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show.

Most reliable sources -- including the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and Wikipedia -- agree that the actress was born on July 26, 1909, with the given name of Vivian Roberta Jones.

One of the primary resources for showbiz information, the Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com), however, places Vance's birthday five years later, on July 26, 1914, but it also lists her first marriage as taking place in 1928, making her quite the child bride.

Vivian Vance was primarily a stage actress before she was cast as landlady/sidekick Ethel Mertz by Desi Arnaz for I Love Lucy. IMDB shows a gap of 17 years between her first movie, Take a Chance (loosely based on a Broadway musical of the same name), and her second, The Secret Fury. A year after that came her first television credit, I Love Lucy.

During the intervening years, Vance was on Broadway in several shows, including the original casts of Anything Goes; Red, Hot, and Blue; and Let's Face It (all with scores by Cole Porter, the first two starring Ethel Merman). She was also in a revival of The Cradle Will Rock, playing "Mrs. Mister." Over the years her costars included Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Marjorie Main, Nanette Fabray, Danny Kaye, Eve Arden, Jack Albertson, Jesse White, Will Geer, and Gertrude Lawrence. (Pardon me while I lift up my jaw from the floor.)

While theatre patrons, in New York and elsewhere, might have known Vance by name or by face, it wasn't until the advent of television that she became a household name. Not only was I Love Lucy a top-rated show throughout its original run on CBS in the 1950s, through syndication it may well have become the most-viewed television series of all time. (It is said, and probably correctly so, that somewhere in the world, an episode of I Love Lucy is broadcast every hour of every day.)

After her on-screen partnership with Lucille Ball ended, Vance did a few bit parts in movies and on television, and frequently appeared as herself on game shows and chat shows. She was on the road, performing before live audiences in summer stock and regional productions of shows like Arsenic and Old Lace and Everybody Loves Opal.

Because Vivian Vance was an accomplished stage actress and singer, she possessed the skills necessary to react appropriately against Lucy Ricardo's outlandishness. Like George Burns playing off of Gracie Allen, Vance was able to make Lucille Ball's comedy seem that much more funny, simply because she was so understated. She no doubt benefited from Arnaz's decision to film I Love Lucy before a live audience (as conventional as this seems today, this was a new idea in 1951), applying her experience from the theatre to enhance her ability to feed off an audience's energy and reactions.

I found a couple of clips on YouTube of Vivian Vance away from the Lucy sets.

The first is a segment from her debut film, Take a Chance, in which Lillian Roth sings "Eadie Was a Lady" (a Buddy DeSylva/Richard Whiting/Nacio Herb Brown song introduced by Ethel Merman). Vance appears at minute marker 5:45, just after Mae Questel (the voice of Olive Oyl and Betty Boop), singing one of the verses.

The second clip is from a March 22, 1965, episode of I've Got a Secret. Not only does Vivian Vance appear as a guest (with a secret), but Carol Channing, then appearing on Broadway in Hello, Dolly!, is on the panel along with regulars Bill Cullen, Bess Myerson, and Henry Morgan. Steve Allen is the host.

One thing that made my ears prick up as I watched this video comes toward the end and makes me wonder if Vivian Vance might have been a fan of Ayn Rand.

Why would I ask that, you may wonder. Well, when Vance takes on the "role" of a prosecuting attorney, she asks about a murder and, when pressed for details, notes the murder took place on "January 16th" (minute marker 6:50). Is this just a coincidence, or did this ad lib from Vivian Vance originate in her thinking about Ayn Rand's play, The Night of January 16th? Why else would she reference this particular date on the spur of the moment?

Sadly, we will probably never know, since Vivian Vance passed away 30 years ago, on August 17, 1979, at the age of 70, after suffering from breast cancer and a stroke.

It really is an intriguing question, isn't it?

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Remembering Ratification

Today is the 221st anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the elected delegates of the people of Virginia, meeting in convention in Richmond. Delegates included James Madison, Patrick Henry, John Marshall, George Mason, and James Monroe.

Virginia's ratification came four days after the Constitution had received the approval of the required nine states and preceded New York's ratification by one day. The Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789, about eight months later.

Virginia did not ratify the new Constitution without reservation. In addition to a declaration of ratification, it sent along a list of demands.

One of the demands was that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution. Madison, who was one of the "Federalist" leaders of the convention (Henry and Mason being leaders of the "Anti-Federalists," believing that the new central government was too powerful and there was too little protection of individual rights and liberties), took this demand seriously and introduced 12 amendments to the Constitution shortly after he took office as a Member of Congress. Ten of those amendments were ratified almost immediately and became the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791; an eleventh, dealing with the remuneration of Members of Congress, became the 27th Amendment in May 1992.

In its message of ratification, the convention stated (italics added):

WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified, by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes: and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States.

Those are powerful words, too little honored, and too much forgotten, today.

Another Anniversary: 'Tear Down This Wall!'

It seems the date of June 12 is a propitious one for those who value human rights and human liberty. I have already noted the anniversary of the Virginia Declaration of Rights but, thanks to an email correspondent, I was reminded just a few minutes ago of another anniversary, more contemporaneous in time -- the event we remember occurred in the 20th century, not the 18th century.

Twenty-two years ago today, President Ronald Reagan, addressing an international audience at the Brandenburg Gate, historically the passageway between the eastern and western portions of Berlin but then blocked by brick, stone, concrete, and barbed wire (known as, of course, the Berlin Wall), said in the speech's most memorable passage:

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

And thus began the unraveling of the Soviet Empire.

The key portion of President Reagan's speech can be seen on the video, below. It can be heard in full at the American Rhetoric web site.

H/T: Shaun Kenney.

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Worth a Reminder

I have mentioned this before, but it is worth remembering that today, June 12, is the anniversary of the adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776.

The National Archives has an on-line exhibit of the Virginia Declaration of Rights that notes:

Virginia's Declaration of Rights was drawn upon by Thomas Jefferson for the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. It was widely copied by the other colonies and became the basis of the Bill of Rights. Written by George Mason, it was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776.

It may be valuable, 233 years later, to post the full text here, as well, since many people are unfamiliar with Mason's handiwork, even though much of it continues to be a part of the Virginia state constitution:

A DECLARATION OF RIGHTS made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government .

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Section 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants and at all times amenable to them.

Section 3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration. And that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

Section 4. That no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, nor being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.

Section 5. That the legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part, of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.

Section 6. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled for the public good.

Section 7. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights and ought not to be exercised.

Section 8. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man has a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

Section 9. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Section 10. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.

Section 11. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred.

Section 12. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

Section 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

Section 14. That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from or independent of the government of Virginia ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.

Section 15. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

Section 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.

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The Great Elm Grove Train Wreck

"April is the cruelest month," said Eliot. While "breeding lilacs out of the dead land" may not seem to be such a bad thing, one must remember that April also has bred some sad memories: the beginning of the U.S. War Between the States; the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the death of Franklin Roosevelt.

One April day in particular merits, for good and ill, special commemoration. April 19 is the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord (1775), the Waco massacre of 1993, the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City, and one lesser-known event -- the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. That last event probably did not get the national attention of the others, but it was certainly vivid to those who lived nearby.

This April 19 will mark 50 years since a train slammed into the train depot in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, with more than two dozen cars jumping the tracks. Fortunately, because it was early on a Saturday morning, nobody was killed or injured. The depot building, however, was destroyed and a sleepy village in suburban Milwaukee was shaken up.

The Waukesha Freeman, the nearest local newspaper, was on the scene and reported the events of that morning in its afternoon edition:

Thirty cars of an eastbound Milwaukee Road freight train jumped the tracks in the village this morning, demolishing the depot and damaging two other buildings.

Two freight cars plowed into the small depot, moving it 30 feet off the foundation and leaving only the roof intact. The station agent, Tom Tracy, 33, was at his rooming house in Elm Grove. He does not work on Saturdays.

Another car shattered a 20 foot section of the nearby Reinders Bros. feed store and a tiny shed. Another 40 foot section of the feed store company's storage room was damaged.

J.A. Jakubec, Milwaukee general superintendent for the railroad, said a hot journal box on one of the freight cars probably caused the accident. When the journal box becomes overheated, the weight of the car collapses on the wheels.

The derailed cars contained canned peas and corn, paper, packaged flour, lumber, plywood and pulpwood.

A rumor that one of the boxcars was loaded with poison was untrue, Jakubec said.

He predicted that the main line won't be open until tomorrow morning. In the meantime westbound trains are being rerouted by way of Horicon to Portage, and eastbound cars from Portage to Madison to Milwaukee.

Elm Grove Police Chief Harold Graf said he was sitting in his office on Legion Dr. and Juneau blvd. at 6:30am when he heard a "terrific rumble." He knew immediately it was a train, looked up and all he could see was dust, he said. "It all took place in a minute and a half." Graf said. Telephone lines and electric lines were down and the railroad depot was demolished."

One of the freight cars came to rest about 12 feet from the corner of Felden's Tavern just northeast of the crossing. About $300 worth of liquor fell off the shelves and was damaged or destroyed. Phil Felden, who was asleep in the living quarters of the tavern, said, "It sounded like a tornado going through. It rumbled for about five minutes. It jarred us out of bed." Mrs. Felden said it was good fortune that the accident happened when it did. Her four small children ordinarily play outside the tavern in the area where the boxcar came to rest.

Along with hundreds of other gawkers, my grandfather, Chester J. Michalak -- one of the early suburban pioneers of nearby Brookfield -- was drawn to the scene. Unlike most of the others, however, he had his 16mm home-movie camera with him. I believe the three-and-a-half minutes of film footage he recorded may be the only extant moving-picture record of the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. (It would be interesting to see if any of the Milwaukee TV stations have similar recordings in their archives but, knowing what we do about the preservation practices of TV stations and networks of that era, the existence of such records is doubtful.)

Here is what I found in a video transfer of my grandfather's film:

Local artist Gil Reid, who years later created a watercolor portrait of the destroyed Elm Grove railroad station, put his own memories of that day on video in 2006:

I suspect that, in about two weeks, the people of Elm Grove and Brookfield and surrounding neighborhoods will be commemorating this event. I hope this rare video will help them in resurrecting the images of that day half a century ago.