583 County Kerry, History: This is the feast day of Saint Brendan of Clonfert the Navigator who ostensibly made a voyage of seven years to the Land of Delight or the Garden of Eden. Did he reach the Americas? Christopher Columbus used this legend in part to justify the project to cross the Atlantic.
1763 London, Literature: Samuel Johnson met his future biographer and thereafter constant companion James Boswell, the diarist. Johnson called him Bozzy. The latter’s very name passed into common usage for constant companion as when Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes proclaim that he was ‘lost without his Boswell,’ i.e., Dr Watson.
1815 Blackheath, History: In the Blue Mountains returning from Bathurst NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie named the settlement Blackheath after the colour and texture of native flora. The current population is 4,400. I finished ‘Matters of Justice’ (1986) there in a rented cabin one November when it snowed!
1866 Philadelphia, Popular Culture: Pharmacist Charles Hires began to sell ‘Root Beer’ made from the root of the sassafras tree without caffeine. A tea-totaler he promoted it as the temperance drink with health-giving properties. After many corporate sales and changes Cadbury Schweppes bought the residual company and still uses the name in an alcoholic drink, Hires Root Beer and Vodka!
2014 Chicago, Media: Barbara Walters retired from television at eighty-four. Her career spanned fifty years and led the way for women in the media, especially in serious journalism. She moderated presidential debates, interviewed Anwar Sadat, anchored NBC evening news, and made documentaries, often about the handicapped and disabled. Her example inspired countless other women in front of the camera to do more than point to the letters on a game show. I did see her flummoxed once when interviewing the president of a poor African country. She more or less asked him how he could take a salary in a destitute country. His reply was something like this: “Well, since you have brought up salaries, I can assure that I make much less than do you.’ With a tight smile, she was at a loss for a reply and the floor director cut to a commercial.
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