The Transcontinental Express

Photo of the Golden Spike circa 1869 courtesy www.nytstore.com.

"Express Train Crosses Nation in 83 Hours" read the headline on June 4, 1876.  The Transcontinental Express, from New York City to San Francisco, was in business. 

Back in 1800, Thomas Jefferson, who had never seen a train, had a dream of a nation stretching from "sea to shining sea".  He proposed using steam to propel a "carriage on wheels".  At the time, it took him 10 days to travel by stagecoach from Monticello, Virginia, the site of his summer home, to Philadelphyia, Pennsylvania, temporary home of the nation's capital (1790-1800). 

American pioneers took six months to cross the continent by Conestoga wagon along the Oregon Trail.  Although the West was largely unsettled in the mid-1800's, the landscape changed with the California Gold Rush which attracted many migrants, many of whom stayed.  Abraham Lincoln dreamed of a transcontinental railroad and signed a bill to that effect in 1863.   

The new railroad was built in large part by Irish immigrants (the Union Pacific section) and Chinese immigrants (the Central Pacific section).  It took six years to complete, hindered by the Civil War at first.  In 1869, the last spike, which was a "golden spike", was driven into the ground at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the two railroads met, amidst a cheering crowd, some standing on the desert floor surrounded by sage brush, others sprawled over and engine with bottles of champagne in their fists.  It was truly a historic moment.

The first trip across the continent, through the mountains of Appalachia, through the Mississippi Delta, through the Badlands of the Dakotas and through the Mojave Desert of Utah was a beautiful sight to behold for the passengers.  The black engine, complete with a "cowcatcher" at the front to clear the track of cows and other wildlife, puffed through the mid-West where buffalo once roamed. 

However, progress was still not fast enough for some.  Within 7 years, the Transcontinental Express was in operation, guaranteeing passengers a trip in three and a half days.  First-class passengers rode in plush velvet seats and slept in cozy sleeping berths and were served by attentive porters; for an extra four dollars, they could eat in a first class dining car. 

Third-class passengers, however, were not treated to the express train.  They rode in congested cars with narrow wooden benches which were shunted aside for the express train.  Their cross-country trip took ten days. 

The transcontinental railroad shrunk the United States to a manageable size.  It brought the population westward and several states were added to the Union.  Thomas Jefferson's dream of a nation from "sea to shining sea" was fulfilled.  

Photo of the Transcontinental Express circa 1876 courtesy www.littleblackstar.com.

Baseball and Writing

Fanaticism?  No.  Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
   You can never tell with either
      how it will go
      or what you will do;
   generating excitement--
   a fever in the victim--
   pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
 Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
 To whom does it apply?
 Who is excited?  Might it be I?

It's a pitcher's battle all the way--a duel--
a catcher's, as, with cruel
   puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
      back to plate.  (His spring 
      de-winged a bat swing.)
   They have that killer instinct;
   yet Elston--whose catching
   arm has hurt them all with the bat--
 when questioned, says, unenviously,
   "I'm very satisfied.  We won."
 Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
 robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
   the massive run need not be everything.
      "Going, going . . . "  Is
      it?  Roger Maris
   has it, running fast.  You will
   never see a finer catch.  Well . . .
   "Mickey, leaping like the devil"--why
 gild it, although deer sounds better--
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
 one-handing the souvenir-to-be
 meant to be caught by you or me.

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
   He is no feather.  "Strike! . . . Strike two!"
      Fouled back.  A blur.
      It's gone.  You would infer
   that the bat had eyes.
   He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel.
   I think I helped a little bit."
 All business, each, and modesty.
        Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
 In that galaxy of nine, say which
 won the pennant?  Each.  It was he.

Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos--
   like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
      diagnosis
      with pick-off psychosis.
   Pitching is a large subject.
   Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
   catch your corners--even trouble
 Mickey Mantle.  ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
 With some pedagogy,
 you'll be tough, premature prodigy.)

They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees.  Trying
indeed!  The secret implying:
   "I can stand here, bat held steady."
      One may suit him;
       none has hit him.
   Imponderables smite him.
   Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
   require food, rest, respite from ruffians.  (Drat it!
 Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
 brewer's yeast (high-potency--
 concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez--
deadly in a pinch.  And "Yes,
   it's work; I want you to bear down,
      but enjoy it
      while you're doing it."
   Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
   if you have a rummage sale,
   don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
 Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
 O flashing Orion,
 your stars are muscled like the lion. 

Marianne Moore

Photo courtesy http://thegazette.com.

Queen Elizabeth II

Today marks the beginning of the diamond jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth II.  Her coronation took place on June 2, 1953.  Here are ten things you may not know about her.

1.  She has no passport.  Eventhough she has visited 160 countries, she doesn't need one as each passport is issued in her name.  She also has no driver's licence, although she does take occasional joyrides around her property.

2.  She has two birthdays.  Her official one is April 21, 1926.  However, in each Commonwealth country, her birthday is celebrated either in May or June.

3.  For safety reasons, during much of World War II, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret stayed at Windsor Castle or Balmoral Castle in Scotland, especially during the London Blitz.

4.  However, when Elizabeth turned 18, she begged her father to let her serve in the military and he acquiesced.  She trained as a mechanic and drove a military truck as part of the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.

5.  Elizabeth paid for her wedding dress with ration coupons, given the war had just ended two years previously and Britain was hurting economically. 

6.  Elizabeth married her third cousin, a former prince of Greece and Denmark.  The bride did not take her husband's name, Mountbatten, but chose to remain a Windsor.

7.  Elizabeth sent her first e-mail in 1976, the first head of state to do so.

8.  Elizabeth was shot at while on horseback in her birthday parade in 1981.  Unruffled, she simply calmed her horse down and kept riding.

9.  In 1982, a stalker scaled a Buckingham Palace drainpipe and entered the Queen's chambers.  She simply engaged him in conversation for 10 minutes until a palace worker was able to apprehend him.

10.  Elizabeth is a keen horsewoman who keeps racehorses and occasionally visits Kentucky stud farms.

Photo of Queen on balcony of Buckingham Palace courtesy http://1.bp.blogspot.com.

How the Berenstain Bears Got Their Name

Image courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org.

Everyone has read the Berenstain Bears books with Papa Bear in his trademark overalls, Mama Bear in her blue dress with white polka dots, Brother Bear in blue overalls and red shirt, and Sister Bear in her pink overalls and bow.  However, few of us know how the Berenstain Bears got their name.  I assumed that the authors chose it; however, it was another author named Theodor Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss.

Theodor Geisel had his first book published in 1957 called To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street by Random House publishing (see my blog "From Madison Ave. to Mulberry St." dated April 29, 2012).  He continued to write books, but he also became an editor at Random House.  Phyllis Cerf, another editor, connected him with two of his early clients, Stanley & Janice Berenstain.  The artistic couple soon discovered that Mr. Geisel was just like one of his book characters, The Cat in the Hat:  as an editor, he was "charming, courtly and congenial" but also "demanding, dismissive and downright difficult".   

The first manuscript they presented him was published in 1962 as The Big Honey Hunt under the Beginner Books division.  However, Theodor Geisel suggested that everyone was writing about bears (Yogi Bear, Smokey Bear, The Three Bears, the Chicago Bears) and he proposed that they write their second book about another animal.  The Berenstain's chose a penguin; however, in the middle of writing it, Mr. Geisel phoned them to say that the Bears were selling like hotcakes.  The sequel, titled The Bike Lesson, was published as The Berenstain Bears, at the suggestion of Theodor.  The "master of rhymes" also shortened the authors' names to Stan & Jan without consulting them, although the change seemed workable. 

The Berenstain's continued to pump out books.  In 1974, Sister Bear was added to the series in the edition The Berenstain Bears' New Baby.  In the 1970's and 1980's, the couple made some television specials starring the Bears.  In 2000, Honey Bear was added in the edition The Birds, The Bees and the Berenstain Bears, her name having been chosen by a fan.  In 2003, the PBS television series debuted.  Today there are almost 500 titles in the collection, written in 23 languages.  Stan Berenstain passed away in 2005, but his son Mike joined his wife in writing new titles, many of which have Christian themes like The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule.  Son Leo is involved in the business end of the franchise.  Jan passed away this past February. 

For more information, read the Berenstain's autobiography Down a Sunny Dirt Road (2002).

Early photo of Stan & Jan Berenstain, married for 54 years, courtesy http://cdn.everyjoe.com.

Hatfield's vs McCoy's

Photo of Hatfield clan circa 1890's courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud, involving two pistol-toting, tobacco-chewing, moonshine-making, brawl-inciting families from the Appalachians, lasted roughly from 1865 to the 1901.  Here are 10 things you may not know about this feud.

1.  This was a two-state feud.  The Tug Fork, a tributary of the Big Sandy River, divided the Hatfield property in West Virginia, from the McCoy land in Kentucky.

2.  Most of the Hatfield's fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War while most of the McCoy's fought for the Union.  The first dispute between the two families resulted from the death of returning Civil War veteran Asa McCoy who was killed by ex-Confederate Homeguards.  Jim Vance, a Hatfield and a member of the Homeguards, was the suspected murderer.

3.  Hollywood loves them.  Books, songs and films have been written about the two families.  In 1950 Bugs Bunny was caught between the Hatfield's and the McCoy's in an episode called "Hillbilly Hare".  In 1952, Abbot and Costello did a feature on them.  "The Flintstones" episode called "The Bedrock Hillbillies a.k.a. The Hatrocks" (1960's) was based on the two clans.  A 2012 TV series called "The Hatfield's and The McCoy's" is also loosely based on the two families.

4.  The game show "Family Feud" was inspired by the Appalachian feud.  In 1979, descendants of both families appeared on the show.  The Hatfield's won, claiming a monetary prize as well as a pig, supposedly one of the catalysts of the original feud.

5.  "Life" magazine (May 1944) featured an article about how the families were living in peace by World War II, the conflict helping to unite them as it did many families.  Descendants Shirley Hatfield and Frankie McCoy (see photo below) had their photo snapped outside of a local military uniform factory where they worked side by side.

6.  The Supreme Court of the United States got involved in the feud when some Hatfield's were arrested for the murders of Randall McCoy's two children.  The Court ruled that the suspects would be extradited from West Virginia to Kentucky to stand trial.  They were charged and seven men served life sentences while one (Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts) was executed for the murders.

7.  A 2007 medical study of dozens of McCoy descendants proved that they are prone to the Von Hippel-Lindau disease, an illness which causes tumors of the ears, eyes, pancreas and adrenal glands.  They are prone to high blood pressure, racing heartbeats and high levels of the fight or flight stress hormones, which might explain their combattive behaviour.

8.  A May 19, 1920 clash led to more bloodshed in the area.  Detectives from the anti-union Baldwin-Felts Agency evicted families of workers trying to unionize the Stone Wall Mountain Coal Company Miners in Matewan, West Virginia.  Sid Hatfield intervened on behalf of the miners, resulting in a violent clash :  seven detectives and four local men were left dead.  Sid became famous for defending the miners and was assassinated a year later, purportedly by Baldwin-Felts agents.  This clash spawned the 1987 film "Matewan".

9.  There are thousands of descendants of the Hatfield-McCoy clan including:  Henry D. Hatfield, a newphew of the patriarch William "Devil Anse" Hatfield, who became governor of West Virginia; 1930's jazz Musician Clyde McCoy is also one; and basketball coach Mike D'Antoni belongs in this category.  Leonard "Bones" McCoy, from the original "Star Trek" TV series, is a fictional descendant.

10.  Bo McCoy and his cousin, Ron McCoy, organized "The Reunion of the Millenium" (2000) between the Hatfield's and the McCoy's.  Five thousand descendants attended the event.

Source:  www.history.com.

For more information, read The Coffin Quilt by Ann Rinaldi. 

"Life" magazine photo of Shirley Hatfield and Frankie McCoy courtesy www.history.com.

The Great Stork Derby

My daughter Jacqueline's favourite episode of The Flintstones involves Fred staying overnight at his late Uncle Giggles' haunted house in order to collect his inheritance.  He makes it through the night despite all of the scary incidences, but the next day it's revealed that his uncle really never died and was just playing a practical joke.

Charles Millar, a wealthy Toronto lawyer, was also a practical joker.  One of his favourite tricks was to drop a few dollar bills on the sidewalk, hide and then see the reaction on peoples' faces as they found them.  And like Uncle Giggles, he was childless.  He did not have any immediate descendants and therefore thought up some unique ways of dividing up his estate.  Upon his death, his will was read and it was revealed to have many "funny" clauses, including:

1.  Seven Protestant ministers, who were also temperance movement members, were given stock in the Catholic-owned O'Keefe Brewery.
2.  Three men who despised each other were given lifetime tenancy in his Jamaica vacation home.
3.  Three staunch anti-horse-racing advocates were given $25,000 each in an Ontario jockey club stock.

The tenth clause, however, proved to be the most interesting and controversial.  Mr. Millar's will read that he would give a chunk of his estate to the Toronto woman who gave birth to the most babies in the 10-year period following his death.  Little did the lawyer know that the Roaring Twenties would give way to the Dirty Thirties, a time when families were more desperate than ever financially.  Many Toronto women were more than willing to try:  the Great Stork Derby had begun. 

In the meantime, some Toronto lawyers, as well as some of Mr. Millar's relatives, tried to discredit the clause, battling it out in the Supreme Court of Canada.  However, the deceased lawyer had known the letter of the law and made sure he left no room for loopholes.  Even so, boundaries had to be drawn for the "baby race":  Where did Toronto begin and end?  Did illegitimate children count?  How about stillborn children?  Above all, many pointed out that the derby should be cancelled since it was immoral. 

Regardless, the Stork Derby went ahead as planned.  Toronto's maternity wards had more patients.  Its newspapers ran more birth announcements.  By 1937, four women won the Great Stork Derby, each having given birth to 9 children in the ten year period:  Annie Smith, Kathleen Nagle, Lucy Timleck and Isabel Maclean.  Homes and automobiles were purchased as well as education plans for their children with the winnings.

Note:  "The Great Stork Derby" was a made into a TV movie in 2002 starring Megan Follows.  For further information, read The Great Stork Derby by Mark M. Orkin.

Photo courtesy http://lh3.ggpht.com.

Step by Step to the Summit

Photo of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay courtesy http://nepaleseingoettingen.blogspot.com.



Sixteen years before Neil Armstrong left his boot imprint in the dust of moon's surface, Edmund Hillary left his boot imprint in the ice of Mount Everest's peak, the world's highest mountain.  Bundled in layers of clothing, goggles over their eyes, backpacks over their shoulders, they were no longer thinking about their uncomfortable gear.  Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, Hillary's climbing companion, stood with an ice axe as Hillary snapped a picture.  Then the Sherpa offered to take Hillary's photo, but he declined.  With their oxygen supply slowly depleting, Hillary buried a cross and Tenzing left a Buddhist offering of chocolate, and then they got ready to retrace their steps down the icy slope of the mountain. 

Edmund Hillary, the son of a schoolteacher mother and newspaper editor father, was born and raised in New Zealand.  He was a bright student, skipping two grades in elementary school.  In high school, which he took a two hour train ride to reach, he was an average student.  He studied math and science at the University of Auckland.  However, he decided to take up beekeeping instead.  On a school trip to Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano, the 6 foot 5 inch New Zealander was bitten by the mountain climbing bug. 

In 1939, he climbed Mount Ollivier in the Southern Alps.  However, he was sidetracked when he was conscripted for the war effort in 1943, joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force and operating Catalina flying boats in the Pacific.  On the Solomon Islands, he was badly burned in a boat accident and had to return home. 

After World War II, Hillary resumed his life as a mountaineer.  In 1948, he climbed Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak.  In 1951, he participated in a reconnaissance expedition on Mount Everest in the Himalayas.  In 1952, he joined an expedition to the peak of Mount Cho Oyu, also in the Himalayas, which failed. 

Then in 1953, he was invited to join a British expedition to the summit of Mount Everest.  From 1921 to 1953, there had been 8 expeditions to the famous mountain, mainly from the Tibet side, resulting in 16 deaths and no successes.  In 1949, China took control of Tibet, forcing mountaineers to climb the peak from the Nepal side. 

The 1953 attempt to reach the peak would include a party of 400 people:  362 porters, 20 Sherpas, a cameraman, a doctor and a reporter, etc.  Their gear would weigh 10,000 pounds.  The group set up base camp in March of that year.  Hillary and Norgay were accompanied by Hunt and Bourdillon.  With several pounds of gear on their back, they headed up the mountain face, step by step, to the summit.  Hunt and Bourdillon were the first to attempt to summit, but ran out of oxygen and were forced to turn back within 300 feet of the peak.  Hillary and Norgay's attempt was postponed for two days due to blowing snow.  Finally, their chance presented itself.  That morning Hillary went to grab his mountain boots only to find they were frozen solid in the ice outside the tent.  Finally, the pushed on to the peak.  Hillary figured out a strategy to climb the 40-foot rock face (later called the Hillary Step) which was the key to a successful summit.  By 11:30 am, they were "on top of the world" at 29,928 feet above sea level. 

Back in New Zealand, a small country of less than 2 million at the time, Hillary was considered a hero.  In Britain, Queen Elizabeth received the news on the day of her Coronation.  She knighted Hillary and Hunt for their exploits.  Sir Edmund Hillary graced the cover of Life magazine, among others.  Nepal became a country near and dear to his heart; he financed the building of several schools and hospitals there as well as the restoration of monasteries.  He would go on to explore the South Pole and the North Pole, as well as other adventures, but he be remembered first for as the conqueror of Mount Everest.