Well-Bred & Well-Brewed

The date is July 10th, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from Portland, Oregon.

Today is the birthday of Nikola Tesla, Serbian-born American engineer. He is known for his Tesla Coil and the contributions he made to alternating current electricity supply system. 

He was born in 1856 to an Eastern Orthodox Priest and his wife. Tesla’s mother, Đuka Mandić Tesla, had a knack for crafting tools for use in the home and fixing what mechanical appliances the family had. Despite no formal education, Đuka had an elastic brain and could recite epic poems from memory. Tesla credited his mother with giving him an excellent memory and instilling in him an insatiable curiosity for how things worked. 

A professor’s demonstrations of electricity during Tesla’s teen years piqued his own interest in the subject. He felt there was something particularly alluring about electricity and desired to learn more. 

Tesla returned from school to his small hometown at age 17, having completed the 4-year term in just three years. However, instead of being able to set out for more schooling or work, Tesla contracted cholera. 

Tesla was the only surviving boy of his parents’ four children. His elder brother had died in a horseriding accident when Tesla was a child. Tesla’s father, Milutin, was watchful during his nine-month bout with cholera. Desperate his only son survive, Tesla’s father promised Tesla that he would no longer ask him to become a priest. Instead, his father promised to send him to the best engineering school in all of Europe if Tesla would only survive the illness. 

Two years later, Tesla was able to attend the Austrian Polytechnic Institute on scholarship. He had perfect attendance and aced all his classes. He claimed to work from 3am to 11pm Sunday through Saturday on his coursework. 

Although an admirable work-ethic, Tesla was burnt-out by his second year. He lost his scholarship, became addicted to gambling, and dropped out of school altogether. He moved away, and embarrassed, told no one where he was going. 

It wasn’t until his father was struck with an unknown illness that Tesla returned home, offering support to his father and family as they had to him during his fit of cholera. During this time, Tesla seemed to regroup a bit, and settled into a routine of teaching at the grammar school he had attended in his own youth. 

Finally, after a term auditing classes in Prague, Tesla secured a job in Budapest, the first job in a long line of positions on the path to a shining legacy in electrical and mechanical engineering.

Today is the birthday of Mildred Benson, America journalist and author. 

In 1929, Benson, a twenty-something journalist, answered an ad in a newspaper by Stratemeyer Syndicate looking for ghostwriters.  

After completing her first ghostwriting assignment Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario, she was given notes for a new series, starring a character named Nancy Drew. Benson’s Nancy Drew work was edited and rewritten by the Stratemeyer staff in accordance with their needs, but it was Benson who was responsible for Nancy’s spunky personality and adventurous spirit. She ended up penning the first 23 books in the Nancy Drew series. She claimed her favorite was the second, The Hidden Staircase.

The wild success of Nancy Drew emboldened Benson to write her own teen adventure series, known as the Penny Parker series. Benson wrote the Penny Parker books on her own and she felt that her character Penny Parker was “more ‘Nancy Drew’ than Nancy was.”

When it was revealed that Mildred Benson was indeed the writer behind the Carolyn Keene pen-name, Mildred received plenty of requests to sign copies of Nancy Drew books, but only obliged on the copies she had written. 

The Sick Rose

By William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick! 

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.

The date is July 9th, Tuesday, and today I’m heading from Los Angeles, California to Portland, Oregon, in the USA.

Today is the birthday of Elias Howe, American inventor of the sewing machine. 

Born in 1819 in Massachusetts, Elias Howe was reportedly interested in machines and how they worked from an early age. He began working in a cotton factory in Boston as soon as he was old enough. To survive the hard financial times of 1837 and preceding years, Howe bounced from factory to factory. The exposure to a variety of early mechanisms would prove helpful in his engineering knowledge. 

During his time at a textile mill, a boss casually mentioned that the person who invented a sewing machine would be wealthy indeed. There were other sewing machines on the market, but none were commercially successful. Twenty-two years old and full of ambition, Howe spent the next five years tinkering with a sewing machine invention in his spare time, and was rewarded with a patent in 1846.  

With technical brilliance but lacking marketing know-how, Howe’s patent was not picked up by any manufacturers. Growing poorer by the day, Howe sold a copy of his patent to a businessman in England and moved there with his family to further tinker on his machine so that it could handle leather fabrics. 

When he returned to the States several years later, he was angered to find rampant and blatant patent infringement of his sewing machine! After lengthy litigation, in 1854, Howe was able to reap the rewards of his invention and enjoyed the profits until his death in 1867. The basic principles of his sewing machine are still used in sewing machines today. 

Today is the birthday of Ann Radcliffe, English novelist.  

For a writer of some truly terrifying stuff, Radcliffe had a rather quiet childhood. She was brought up with all the necessary comforts and then some. Her father was a successful hat maker (or haberdasher) who started a second business running a china shop in the tourist town of Bath, England. She mixed in upper-middle class company but was not very outgoing despite her classic beautiful looks.

In 1787, a 23-year-old Ann married the dashing William Radcliffe, an Oxford graduate, journalist, and editor of the English Chronicle. Mr. Radcliffe often worked late, and as a new wife with plenty of time on her hands, Mrs. Radcliffe began writing stories. When her husband would return spent for the evening, Ann would read to him her stories. 

Ann Radcliffe used her favorite landscape paintings as the basis for descriptions of places in her books. She in fact never visited most of the places she described in her six novels. 

Although Radcliffe, referred to her novels as ‘romances,’ they were more accurately a Gothic Romances. She is credited with restoring the reputation of the Gothic genre since any supernatural elements were dispelled with logical explanations by the end of her stories. Her novels weren’t very deep reads, but she always made sure to put male and female characters on equal footing. 

The fact that Radcliffe was the highest paid writer in the 1790s was a testament to her popularity. The extra income allowed for her and her husband to take trips abroad with their dog Chance, enjoying the countries of Holland and Germany. 

The most widely read of her novels was The Mysteries of Udolpho, published in four volumes. It is The Mysteries of Udolpho that Jane Austen explicitly mentions and parodies to an extent, in Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey. 

Radcliffe’s work influenced countless authors including the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Walter Scott, John Keats, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 

A Bird Song

Christina Rossetti

It's a year almost that I have not seen her:

Oh, last summer green things were greener,

Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

It's surely summer, for there's a swallow:

Come one swallow, his mate will follow,

The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow

O'er height, o'er hollow! I'd be a swallow,

To build this weather one nest together.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.

The date is July 8th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from Los Angeles, California, in the USA 

Today is the birthday of John Pemberton, American pharmacist and inventor of the Coca-Cola secret recipe.

Pemberton was born and raised in Georgia, outside of Atlanta. He finished up a medical degree at age 19 in 1850. He tried practicing medicine and surgery but was ultimately drawn toward the chemistry side.  He opened up a drug store in a town outside of Atlanta. He got married, had a son, and life moved along at a jaunty pace.

But the Civil War changed all that. Pemberton received sword blow to the abdomen during a battle.  Even after the injury healed outwardly, Pemberton would be struck with bouts of intense pain. He would be so overcome with the pain that he would be bedridden for days at a time. To manage the severe pain, he used morphine, and soon became an addict

Hoping to find an alternative to his costly morphine habit, Pemberton began experimenting to make a cure-all elixir. Plenty of wellness elixirs were already on the market. Most elixirs were not effective in the slightest, but the kola nut and the coca leaf were two popular ingredients that appeared to have some promise.

[Kola nut was from Africa and had a variety of established benefits. Coca leaf from the Andes in South America was notable as a general mood booster and could increase focus. When distilled down into cocaine however, it is dangerously potent and highly addictive.]

Coca wines, which were more or less wine with cocaine, were quite popular at the time. Pemberton named his cure-all elixir Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. His recipe included coca leaf, kola nut, wine, and damiana.  

He focused on marketing his French Wine Coca to Atlanta’s intellectual elites and in an advertisement claimed the drink was best for "scientists, scholars, poets, divines, lawyers, physicians, and others devoted to extreme mental exertion.”

Pemberton saw decent sales of his French Wine Coca, but as the temperance movement began to sweep the nation in the 1880s, he had to rethink his product and its formula.

Inspired by the soda fountains in malt shops and ice cream parlors, Pemberton set out to create a soda syrup, rather than an elixir. 

He spent days, then weeks slaving away to create a base syrup, but emerged with the formula that would later become the most popular and well-known soda brands in the world. Once he had a tasty product, he was able to get it into an ice cream parlor and received regular orders. 

One day a man named Frank Robinson walked into an ice cream parlor and ordered Pemberton’s Kola. He loved it. He immediately went into business with Pemberton, taking over the marketing and budget of the soda syrup.

It was Robinson who coined the “Coca-Cola” name for Pemberton’s drink and used it to promotion the soda at ice cream parlors and malt shops city wide.

Pemberton meanwhile had a hard time keeping up. His addiction and stomach pains had not gone away and he seemed to be spending more and more time in bed because of it. 

Increasingly sick, behind on orders, and running out of money due to his addiction, Pemberton began selling the rights to his formula to business partners in Atlanta. He held onto a few final shares for his son. 

Poor and in severe pain from what Pemberton now knew was stomach cancer, he was approached by Asa Griggs Candler on his deathbed. Candler offered to buy the rest of Pemberton’s Coca Cola shares. Pemberton’s son advised his father to take the money so the family would not be left with nothing after Pemberton’s death. Pemberton sold the rest of his Coca-Cola shares for $1,750 in 1888. The stomach cancer took Pemberton within the year, releasing him from his life-long pain and addiction. 

[If I can stop one heart from breaking]

Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening. 

The date is July 5th, Friday, and today is my last day in La Serena, Chile.

Today is the birthday of Étienne (EH-tien) de Silhouette, a notoriously cheap Comptroller-General of finances under King Louis XV in 1759.  As the head of France’s finances he was in charge of pulling the nation out of a mound of debt. He did so by taxing the wealthiest citizens, curtailing the spending habits of the Royal family, and reforming state pensions. 

Although his methods were more or less effective, they earned de Silhouette a reputation for being a cheap, penny-pincher. He lasted 8 months in the position before gracefully ‘retiring.’  French citizens began to refer to things that were austere or cheap as à la Silhouette. 

Happening at the same time as de Silhouette’s cut-rate reputation was the rise in popularity of shadow profiles cut from black paper. It was popular as an affordable alternative to spendy and elaborate painted portraits or miniatures. The wealthier members of society of course labeled the artform as low-brow and obviously à la Silhouette. Over time, silhouette became synonymous with the artform. The word ‘silhouette’ is still used as the name for the artform, though the artform itself is less common these days. 

The word silhouette has also evolved to refer to a shadow or outline of a shape. Such as the silhouette of a tree on the horizon or of an attractive person. 

And today is the birthday of W. T. Stead, English pioneer of investigative journalism.

William Thomas Stead was born in Northumberland, England in 1849. The son of a respected reverend and an educated and active mother. His father worked to make sure Stead, Jr. was well prepared for school, giving him reading lessons in English and Latin. 

Stead’s mother was a strong-willed woman and her robust moral center certainly influenced Stead’s own world view. Stead fondly recalled how his mother organized a protest in their town, advocating for change in a new government policy. 

In 1880, at the age of 34, Stead took over as editor for the newspaper at The Pall Mall Gazette. As the editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, Stead was the first to regularly incorporate diagrams, maps, and snappy headlines in big fonts to break up large blocks of text.

He kept the newspaper’s focus on social and political issues and was not afraid to go ‘undercover’ in order to reveal a corrupt system or institution. 

In 1885, Stead published “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” exposing the child prostitution circuit in London. It was a three-part series with lurid details in a tone of “thunderous moral outrage.” The sheer gall of the explicit details sent copies flying off the shelves and lead to a change in the lawful age of consent from 13 years old to 16 years old. 

Stead used journalism as a means to elicit change in government policy throughout his career and encouraged other newspapers and journals to do the same. 

He was active as a journalist and speaker until his sudden death during the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. 

Hymn to the Night

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

     Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

     From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

     Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

     As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

     The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

     Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

     My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—

     From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear

     What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care

     And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

     Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

     The best-beloved Night!

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening. 

The date is July 4th, Thursday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

On this day in 1776, America’s Second Continental Congress unanimously voted to ratify the Declaration of Independence. As such, today America celebrates its independence and it is a national holiday in the States.

I’ll spare everyone the long story that is the American Revolution this year, and instead opt for a reading the poem “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key. 

The poem was set to music in the year 1814. The tune was a popular melody called “The Anacreontic Song” by John Stafford Smith of England. But it was Francis Scott Key’s brother-in-law, a judge by the name of Joseph H. Nicholson, who thought the lyrics perfectly fit the existing melody, and first published the tune and lyrics together. 

The song spread through the country over the next 100 years. It wasn’t officially the National Anthem until President Hoover signed it into law on March 4th, 1931. 

Luckily, for sports fans everywhere, only the first verse is sung as the American National Anthem. 

The Star-Spangled Banner

Francis Scott Key

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;

'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land,

Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.

And this be our motto— "In God is our trust; "

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening. 

The date is July 3rd, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile.

On this day in 1608, Québec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain. Champlain landed with three ships at the shore of the city on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. He and his crew set about fortifying the city with walls and a moat. 

Québec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America and the only city north of Mexico City to still have parts of its original fortifying walls. 

Today is the birthday of poet and writer W. H. Davies.  He was born in 1871 in Newport, Wales, a part of the United Kingdom. Davies was always getting into trouble in his youth. As a teen he was arrested with a gaggle of friends for stealing handbags and continued on in vagrant ways into his 20s. 

He lived as a tramp, but not to gather material for writing, as George Orwell did. Rather, a young Davies simply preferred to romp about. And he was young enough not to care for the comforts of a clean or comfortable place to sleep. 

When he did work it, the jobs were menial or off-beat. Davies worked just enough to make what he needed for his next move. One of his more odd jobs included working on a cattle ship, a vessel that transported cows and bulls from Europe to America. 

One winter he spent in Michigan in a “boodle jail.” It’s a bit unclear how boodle jails worked exactly, but basically, a hobo, or tramp, would make an illegal arrangement with the jailer to be “imprisoned” for a time, usually during cold-weather months. Boodle jail ‘prisoners’ would laze about, playing cards, singing with each other, reading books, and sometimes going for walks. Again, for a young Davies without much care for worldly comforts, the boodle jail was a perfectly fine place to spend a winter. 

But Davies’s wild days would come to a crackling halt in 1899.  While jumping onto a train headed for Klondike Canada (chasing the Gold Rush) Davies lost his footing and his right leg got caught up in the wheels of the train. His right foot was shattered, and he’d have to get it amputated later as infection set in. Davies wore a wooden leg from his right-knee down for the rest of his life. 

Although Davies brushed off the injury decades later, but he immediately headed back to England after the injury and settled into a less nomadic life. He roomed at a shelter while he began to compose poetry. He self-published a collection in 1905 titled in The Soul's Destroyer slowly selling copies to elite society. Davies’s poems caught the eye of a journalist who, upon finding the sorry state Davies lived in, offered up a simple cottage. Davies continued to write poems and also wrote a memoir of his time as a tramp while living at the cottage. 

Davies would return to London in 1914, continuing his writing from a humble apartment. He found the literary and artistic community in London quite friendly and was welcomed into their ranks, enjoying conversations at cafes. 

Davies married only once and later in life. Helen Payne was 29 years his junior and pregnant, but after watching her get off of a bus, Davies was head over heels. The couple remained married until Davies’s death in 1940. 

Today’s poem is by our birthday poet, titled “Leisure”

Leisure

W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening. 

The date is July 2nd, Tuesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the ‘midpoint’ of the year. We’ve put 182 days of 2019 behind us and there are 182 days to go. 

Today, people in Chile and Argentina will experience a Total Solar Eclipse – including me! A Total Solar Eclipse is when the moon passes directly in front of the sun, blocking it out completely. It essentially becomes nighttime for two minutes during the middle of the day, with stars visible during totality. 

You can look directly at a Total Solar Eclipse during totality. The corona, the ring of light around the sun, is visible and it is truly spectacular. Pictures and video cannot do a Total Solar Eclipse justice – it really is too incredible for words – just absolutely breathtaking. The next Total Solar Eclipse will occur in December 2020 also in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Today is the birthday of Thurgood Marshall, American lawyer and Supreme Court Justice. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908. Originally named Thoroughgood Marshall, he shortened his name to Thurgood. 

Although he graduated high school a year early, he was a B-average student. He had a bit too much fun his first few years at Lincoln University and was suspended twice for playing disruptive pranks on his classmates. 

But once he met Vivian Burey, his future wife, he buckled down and got more serious about his studies. 

He put his mind to studying law, but he credits Howard University Dean Charles Houston for the inspiration to be the man we remember today. Marshall said, “When you are being challenged by a great human being, you know that you can't ship out.”

Before his nomination to the Supreme Court, Marshall spent 25 years as a lawyer, most of his time spent as the chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. While in that role, he won before the Supreme Court Brown vs Board of Education. In that case the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. In total as a lawyer, Marshall argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of those cases. 

In 1967, Marshall became the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court, nominated by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson

Marshall, in one of his more pensive moods said: “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.”

Today’s poem is titled “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” by Eugene Field. 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

   Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—

Sailed on a river of crystal light

   Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

   The old moon asked the three.

"We have come to fish for the herring-fish

   That live in this beautiful sea;

   Nets of silver and gold have we,"

            Said Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,

   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;

And the wind that sped them all night long

   Ruffled the waves of dew;

The little stars were the herring-fish

   That lived in the beautiful sea.

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—

   Never afraid are we!"

   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw

   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,

   Bringing the fishermen home:

'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed

   As if it could not be;

And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed

   Of sailing that beautiful sea;

   But I shall name you the fishermen three:

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,

   And Nod is a little head,

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies

   Is a wee one's trundle-bed;

So shut your eyes while Mother sings

   Of wonderful sights that be,

And you shall see the beautiful things

   As you rock in the misty sea

   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.  

A French aviator, American poet, and the only Olympic Medalist from Ecuador share a birthday. “The Morning Glory” starts off the new month. 

The date is July 1st, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile.

Today is the birthday of Louis Blériot, French engineer and aviator. In 1909 he became famous as the first person to fly across the English Channel and received £1000 from a contest held by the Daily Mail. But before that he made his fortune in car headlamps. 

In his early twenties, post-graduation, Blériot worked for an electrical engineering company. In his spare time, he invented the first practical headlamp for automobiles. He left the company to develop the headlamp and at age 25 he began his own business selling his headlamps to the top two auto makers in France. 

With the money from his headlamps, he funded experiments in aviation, a burgeoning field. His competitive spirit and love of mechanical puzzles certainly drew him to the challenge of building a successful aircraft. Teaming up with different fellow engineers, he went through 10 aircraft models before the success of his Blériot XI. 

The Blériot XI was the plane he flew across the English Channel, with nearly 10,000 on-lookers at his departure in France and plenty more witnessing his arrival in England. The publicity boosted sales of his planes and the aviation branch of his company finally turned a profit. 

He was the first to use a hand/arm-operated joystick and foot-operated rudder control, a design piece which more or less exists in today’s planes.

Dogged determination to see his goals through was not just applied to Blériot’s work, but his relationships as well.  

When Blériot saw a fetching young lady at his favorite restaurant he reported to his mother that night: “I saw a young woman today. I will marry her, or I will marry no one.” He bribed a server for the lady’s name and less than a year later, he married the love of his life Alice Védères. 

He was the first person to fly with two passengers, the first to fly a plane in Eastern Europe, and beat the Wright Brothers in a years-long patent case. 

Today is the birthday of American poet Florence Earle Coates. She was born in 1850 in Philadelphia to a prominent lawyer and his wife. She received a well-rounded education, going so far as Paris and Brussels for continued studies.

In 1879, at age 29 she married well-to-do banker and fellow widower Edward Coates. Her first husband had passed away after just five years of marriage. The couple had a home in the Germantown suburb of Philadelphia and frequently had company. They attracted many friends through their shared love of art and culture. Florence’s poetry was published in various journals including Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's Magazine, The Literary Digest, and Harper's Monthly, enjoying notoriety both in America and abroad. 

Today is the birthday of Jefferson Pérez, Ecuadorian athlete and Olympic Gold-Medalist. He brought home a Gold in 1996 and a Silver in 2008, both for the 20km race walking event. As a result, racewalking has become a popular sport in Ecuador. I lived in Ecuador for two months and I can attest, that while I went for a run, high school track teams were racewalking. A racewalking athlete is known as a Marchista in Spanish. The current Ecuadorian marchista hopeful is a young native named Óscar Patín.

Today’s poem is by our birthday poet, Florence Earle Coates, titled “The Morning-Glory.”

The Morning-Glory

Florence Earle Coates

Was it worth while to paint so fair

Thy every leaf - to vein with faultless art

Each petal, taking the boon light and air

Of summer so to heart?

To bring thy beauty unto perfect flower,

Then, like a passing fragrance or a smile,

Vanish away, beyond recovery's power -

Was it, frail bloom, worth while?

Thy silence answers: 'Life was mine!

And I, who pass without regret or grief,

Have cared the more to make my moment fine,

Because it was so brief.

'In its first radiance I have seen

The sun! - why tarry then till comes the night?

I go my way, content that I have been

Part of the morning light!'

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening. 

The date is June 28th, Friday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genevan writer and philosopher. His writings The Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality were heavily influential in the European Enlightment, as well as various independence movements in the Western Hemisphere.

Born in 1712, Jean-Jacques’s mother died of fever just nine days after his birth. His father’s sister moved in and helped raise Jean-Jacques and his older brother. 

The Rousseaus lived in an upper-class neighborhood, the house bought with money from Jean-Jacques mother’s side. But at age five their father sold the house and moved into a more middle class neighborhood of craftsmen. His father was a watchmaker by trade and fit into the neighborhood better. Being around such hardworking and skilled individuals left a lasting impression on the young Jean-Jacques. 

Also leaving a lasting effect was his father’s indulgence in evening readings. Rather than bore his boys with Biblical or philosophical texts, Rousseau senior indulged them in entertaining reads filled with adventures and sword fighting and strange lands. When the boys of the family were reading a particularly enthralling story, even Jean-Jacques’s father couldn’t say no to the pleas to continue. Sometimes it wasn’t until birds were chirping outside that Jean-Jacques father would finally realize they had read through the night. According to Jean-Jacques autobiography, his father seeing the approaching dawn would chide, “come, come – let us go to bed; I am more a child than thou art.”

If his childhood was idyllic, his teen years would be turbulent. His father left Geneva to escape legal troubles and married a new wife and did not return. Jean-Jacques’s care fell to his mother’s brother who promptly send his own son and Jean-Jacques to board at a vicar’s home in the country. 

An apprenticeship with a physically abusive boss led Rousseau to flee the countryside. He headed for Geneva to find his relations. Upon arriving to the city at night, he found the gates closed as it was past curfew. He meandered over to Savoy, the next town over, where a Catholic priest and noblewoman took him in on the grounds that he would convert to Catholicism. Desperate and grateful for their kindness, he did so. 

The rest of his teen years he worked at various jobs – secretary, tutor, servant - to make ends meet and was often supported with room and board by the noblewoman who had taken him in, Françoise-Louise de Warens. 

The two became lovers when Rousseau turned twenty, although she was 15 years his senior. The relationship had its benefits: as a noblewoman she had an extensive library and mixed with ‘people of letters.’ Rousseau applied himself more seriously to the study of philosophy and mathematics while fending off his tendency toward hypochondria. 

Finally, in 1754, Rousseau would publish his Discourse on Inequality which postulates that in civil society, private property is the basis of all inequality. In 1762 he would publish The Social Contract, which expanded on some of the ideas in Discourse. But the work that really got him in hot water was Emile, or On Education for which arrest warrants were issued and copies of it were burned. He was accused of blasphemy for the book’s musings and thoughts on religion. 

He lived as a fugitive for two years until things died down and he found that writers from all over Europe would be happy to meet him. He was able to enjoy the remainder of his 66 years in relative comfort, and good company, including that of his beloved domestic partner Thérèse Levasseur. He would write works up until his death by stroke.  

Today’s poem is by birthday poet John Boyle O'Reilly. I didn’t have time to do him justice today--maybe next year. Today’s poem is titled “At School.”

At School

John Boyle O’Reilly

The bees are in the meadow

And the swallows in the sky;

The cattle in the shadow

Watch the river running by.

The wheat is hardly stirring;

The heavy ox-team lags;

The dragon-fly is whirring

Through the yellow-blossomed flag.

And down beside the river,

Where the trees lean o'er the pool,

Where the shadows reach the quiver

A boy has come to school.

His teachers are the swallow

And the river and the trees;

His lessons are the shallows

And the flowers and the bees.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely weekend. 

The date is June 27th, Thursday and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile.

Today is the birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar, African American poet, novelist, and playwright. Dunbar, though he had a short career, achieved a good deal of success mostly through his poetry.

Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, Paul was the child of an emancipated mother and a father who has escaped slavery just before the end of the Civil War. The marriage wasn’t happy though and the couple separated after the birth of Paul’s sister. Matilda Dunbar raised her children with the help of her extended family in Dayton. 

Paul, despite his disadvantaged background, was a child prodigy. His mother taught him to read using her Bible, thinking he might grow up to become a Methodist minister. But Paul caught the poetry bug early. Reportedly at age six he had composed his first poem, giving his first poetry recital at age nine. 

Dunbar in the late 1880s, was the only African-American student at Central High School in Dayton. Instead of being beat-down and forced out of school as one might expect, Dunbar was well-liked and flourished. During his high school years, he was elected president of the literary society, participated in the debate club, and was the editor of the school newspaper. Orville and Wilbur Wright were classmates of Paul’s and Orville and Paul became friends. The friendship with the Wright brothers would be life-long. I like to think that maybe Paul helped Orville with his writing and Orville helped Paul with math, but that’s merely wishful speculation.

During high school, at age 16 in 1888, two of Dunbar’s poems were published in the local Dayton newspaper The Herald. He tried to publish his own small paper for awhile aimed at the local African American population. With the help of the Wright Brothers, Dunbar’s The Tattler lasted six weeks. 

Once high school was over, Dunbar hoped to study law, but the family’s financial status wouldn’t allow such an endeavor. Instead, Dunbar took employment as an elevator operator. Outside of his high school’s bubble, Dunbar faced much more discrimination on a daily basis. 

But that never kept Dunbar from writing his poems in his spare time. He began to experiment with dialect poems and when he had a substantial collection, was able to get it published by the United Brethren Publishing House in 1893. The collection called Oak and Ivy consisted of both traditional verse and Dunbar’s dialect poems. 

Dunbar quickly made back the money he had put into the venture by selling copies to passengers on his elevator. There’s no doubt his sales tactics would have included reciting poems to the passengers to entice them to buy. 

As Dunbar’s fame and patrons grew, he branched out into writing short stories and novels. His work frequently included both black and white characters, though not always together. His poems and essays would be published in top magazines and periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Denver Post and he would compose lyrics for the first full-length, all-black Broadway musical, In Dahomey. 

When many of his cultural contemporaries were of mixed race, Dunbar was seen as more purely ‘African’ and stood out for his very dark complexion. 

After a tour in England, he married the love of his life, Alice Moore, a fellow poet from New Orleans. Dunbar said “she was the sweetest, smartest little girl I ever saw" and the two would write poetry together and for one another until Dunbar’s passing at age 33 of tuberculosis. 

Night of Love

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The moon has left the sky, love, 

The stars are hiding now, 

And frowning on the world, love, 

Night bares her sable brow. 

The snow is on the ground, love, 

And cold and keen the air is. 

I’m singing here to you, love; 

You’re dreaming there in Paris. 

But this is Nature’s law, love, 

Though just it may not seem, 

That men should wake to sing, love; 

While maidens sleep and dream. 

Them care may not molest, love, 

Nor stir them from their slumbers, 

Though midnight find the swain, love. 

Still halting o’er his numbers. 

I watch the rosy dawn, love, 

Come stealing up the east, 

While all things round rejoice, love, 

That Night her reign has ceased. 

The lark will soon be heard, love, 

And on his way be winging; 

When Nature’s poets, wake, love, 

Why should a man be singing?

Thank you for listening. I’m your host Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.