Well-Bred & Well-Brewed

The date is June 26th, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Pearl S. Buck, American writer. Her most famous work is certainly her novel The Good Earth, though she would write over 85 combined novels, short stories, and essays during her career. The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in America for 1931 and 1932 and Pearl was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for it. 

Pearl was born to Christian missionary parents in 1892. That same year, the family traveled to China. Growing up, Pearl played with the Chinese children, received schooling from a local Confucian scholar, and learned both English and Chinese. 

During the Boxer Rebellion, which we covered in last Friday’s episode, Pearl, her siblings and mother retreated to Shanghai for cover. While there, eight-year-old Pearl was among other white children for the first time. She quickly found that none of them spoke the native Chinese language. On top of that, she was shocked to find they maintained racist sentiments. In Pearl’s sheltered life in a Chinese village, it was she who was always the outsider with her blonde hair and blue eyes. 

Pearl would not visit for the United States until age 19 when she left to attend college in Virginia. Pearl had a grand time and wasn’t planning on returning after graduation. However, when her father sent word that her mother had fallen ill, Pearl applied to the Presbyterian Board for help and was able to travel back to China to be with her mother. 

Almost as soon as Pearl had returned to China in 1914, she met and fell in love with her first husband John Buck, a fellow Presbyterian Missionary. They married and lived together as teachers at the University of Nanking. 

The Bucks and Pearl’s father were living together when the Nanking incident occurred in 1927. It was a confused scuffle for power between three groups and the lives of Christian missionary were once again in jeopardy. When violence was imminent, a Chinese family offered to help the family, and invited them to their hut. However, it was all a ruse, and the Bucks’ home was ransacked while they were gone. Under threat of violence, they fled and were rescued after a day of hiding by an American gunboat. 

Perhaps spurred on by a near-death experience, Pearl buckled down on her desire to become a writer. Stuck in a now unhappy marriage, Pearl was determined to write her way out of the marriage and into some steady income. Every morning she would secure herself away in the attic and just write. Within the year she had a complete manuscript for The Good Earth. 

After the successful publication, Pearl Buck had all the money she needed to leave her husband. But first, she gifted the construction of a bathhouse in Nanking for the townswomen and set up a trust fund for her daughter Carol who had a developmental disability. 

She left China in 1934. She tried on many occasions to return to her beloved China, but each time she was denied, the political climate making it impossible. 

She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 for her entire body of work, and was the first American woman to receive the award. Pearl Buck’s parent’s first home in Hillsboro, West Virginia is now a museum to preserve the legacy, work, and private papers of Pearl S. Buck.

I shall forget you presently, my dear (Sonnet IV)

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall forget you presently, my dear,

So make the most of this, your little day,

Your little month, your little half a year

Ere I forget, or die, or move away,

And we are done forever; by and by

I shall forget you, as I said, but now,

If you entreat me with your loveliest lie

I will protest you with my favorite vow.

I would indeed that love were longer-lived,

And vows were not so brittle as they are,

But so it is, and nature has contrived

To struggle on without a break thus far,—

Whether or not we find what we are seeking

Is idle, biologically speaking.

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 25th, Tuesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of English writer Eric Arthur Blair, known better by his pen name George Orwell. He’s remembered today for his novella Animal Farm and novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. From his work we get terms like “Big brother” and the “Thought Police” and of course there is the word “Orwellian” which refers to the dystopian reality depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

During his short lifetime, Blair, or Orwell, was best recognized for his writing in magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. He wrote numerous essays on life, particularly as life from a poor-man’s perspective. 

After a few years spent as an Imperial Officer in the British-ruled India, Orwell returned to England. He wanted to write, but at first wasn’t sure about what. A mentor suggested he head to London’s East End, a working-class neighborhood, for inspiration and content. 

Orwell gave it a try. He spent a few years masquerading as a ‘tramp’ in London and the Paris, working menial jobs and living the life of a vagrant, getting to know the habits and struggles of the poor living in the big cities. His essays gave readers glimpse the hardships of the lower classes and garnered a decent readership, allowing Orwell to practice writing while on a slim budget. 

He would publish Down and Out in Paris and London as a full volume of his time spent as a ‘tramp’ and included calls for improvement in the very classist English social system. One thing he concluded from his immersive experience was that fish and chips, football, the pub, and strong tea among other things, were of the greatest comfort to London’s lower classes.

Orwell continued to lean toward socialist policies, and although he had Communist sentiments, his novella Animal Farm to most scholars appears as a warning against how it can easily transition into something more sinister. It is generally accepted as an allegorical tale for its parallels to the Russian Revolution, Stalinism, and the Soviet Union. Published in August 1945, Animal Farm resonated instantly with the people and Orwell enjoyed a busy period as a full-time writer. He continued to work as a journalist while simultaneously crafting his next book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was published in 1949, also immediate success.

Orwell, who said “The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection” wasn’t all political socialist sentiment. He also managed to write about food though his tastes were not sophisticated. Perhaps, having been around during Britian’s WWII food-rationing, he got used to lean meals. He extolled the perfection of British beers and condemned lagers, fantasizing about what the perfect pub would be like in an essay in 1946. 

But he reserved his true ardor for the cup of tea. He wrote an essay titled “A Nice Cup of Tea” also in 1946. He said "tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country and causes violent disputes over how it should be made.” One of the highlights of Orwell’s day was taking afternoon tea at a cozy table. 

 Both Nineteen Eight-Four and Animal Farm received the Prometheus Book Award in the years after Orwell’s death at the age of 50, and his many essays on English life and culture are treasured by the nation. 

Sonnet 18 [Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?]

William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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 24th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

On this day in 1947 aviator Kenneth Arnold of Washington State made the first widely reported UFO sighting. As he was flying a plane near Mt Rainer in Washington, he claims to have seen nine unusual flying objects. He said they were shaped like a pie pan or like a saucer. The term “flying saucer” was quickly used by the media. The US Government was quick to label Arnold’s sighting a mirage as they generally are wont to do with UFO sightings. 

Arnold’s sighting is notable for the stir it caused. UFO sightings increased after his report and he participated in a few interviews of people claiming they had contact with aliens.

But Arnold grew tired of UFOs and the enthusiasts and stopped all UFO-related guest appearances. But on the 30-year anniversary of his sighting he showed up to the first International UFO Congress meeting in Chicago and said a few words as a guest of honor. The plane Arnold was flying when he made the sighting is preserved at a small aircraft museum in the town of Concrete, Washington and supposedly still flies smoothly. 

Today is the birthday of Chuck Taylor, American basketball player and salesman. Chuck played semi-professional basketball in the late 1910s, but the sport was loosely organized at the time, with teams starting up and disbanding the next year. 

A love of basketball and a true people-person made Chuck the perfect hire as the salesman for the new Converse basketball shoe. But before he would sell the shoe, Taylor had feedback on the rubber shoe company’s latest sneaker. He felt the shoe was too restrictive in places and suggested a flexible material be used. Additionally, he recommended a higher rise in the shoe for ankle support. 

With the Converse All Star shoe ready for the market, Chuck began traveling around hosting basketball clinics to promote basketball and, conveniently, the Converse All-Star sneaker. People didn’t always remember the name of the shoe, but Chuck’s gregarious personality certainly left an impression. People started calling the shoes “Chucks” or “Chuck Taylors.” In the 1930s, Converse embraces the Chuck Taylor name and added Chuck’s signature to the star patch on the shoe. 

His affable personality allowed him to amass an incredible Rolodex of coaches, players, athletic directors, and sports enthusiasts. It became easier and easier for him to find towns that would be happy to host his next clinic.  Over the years Chuck sharp people skills meant that coaches and athletic directors from all over would call him to recommend personnel for their staff. 

During his time at Converse, Taylor invented a “stitchless” basketball that was easier to handle and he was eventually promoted to their marketing director. He was such a staunch promoter he was asked to travel internationally to promote basketball.  

He was so well connected in the basketball world that when basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936, Taylor’s modified All-Star design became the official shoe of the men’s basketball team for the game that year until 1968. 

Chuck Taylor was inducted into the Sporting Goods Hall of Fame in 1958 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1968, a year before his death at age 67. 

From a Railway Carriage

Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

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 21st, Friday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. The Earth is at a point of maximum tilt toward the sun, accounting for the longest day of year for the Northern hemisphere and shortest day for the Southern. Just part of another trip around the sun!

Although in regions closer to the equator, today is mid-summer, in the more seasonal climates it is the official kick-off of the summer season! If you haven’t yet, break out the grills and take off those pool covers. 

On this day in 1900 China’s Empress Dowager Cixi (see-Chee) declared war on eight foreign nations in the conflict known as the Boxer Rebellion. 

For decades, European nations, Russia, and America, the “Allies,” had been vying for ports and spheres of influence in China, as you may recall from high school history. By 1900, the Chinese had already suffered through and lost two Opium Wars resulting in unfair treaties and were facing a possible final dismemberment of their nation. 

Adding to the tension, missionaries continued to spread through inland China. China had become a popular missionary destination as Christians were given special privileges as part of the treaties from the opium wars. Chinese temples had been taken down or retrofitted beyond recognition as Christian churches. 

And it was the Christian missionaries in Shandong that seemed to provoke the most tension. The people of Shandong had their own strong religious traditions which were tied to the practice of martial arts. It’s likely that Christian missionaries in Shandong coined the name “Boxers” for the pugnacious and athlete young men in the province. 

And those young men, many of them teenagers, had a problem. In addition to seeing their country be bullied and taken over by foreigners, the economy was so poor that most of them were unemployed. So they had all this fight and rebellion in them, and plenty of time to take it out on whomever. 

At first, Chinese officials in the province took advantage of the restless “Boxers,” hiring a group of them to do some policing. They were quickly emboldened by the recognition and began attacking and burning churches. The Chinese official that had hired them executed some of the leaders as a punishment, but the “Big Swords” group message began to spread, and clandestine societies of like-minded young men began to pop up throughout China. 

By the time June 21st rolled around, there was already fighting happening. The official announcement from Empress Dowager Cixi just served to rile up the foreign powers, who, though they struggled in the China climate, managed to defeat the Boxers in just two months. 

Sadly, the European winners were vindictive and continued to conduct atrocities for over a year, until the Chinese imperial court signed a peace agreement. Even though the Allied powers may have won on paper, receiving reparation and seeing the execution of an oppositional Chinese leader, the Boxer Rebellion taught them a valuable lesson. Ruling a second nation had diminishing returns and they had their morals to consider. 

Some citizens of the Allies had spoken up in favor of the Boxers, including well-respected icons like Leo Tolstoy and Mark Twain. Twain noted, “The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success.”

For the summer solstice, we have the poem “A Lazy Day” by Paul Lauren Dunbar.

A Lazy Day

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The trees bend down along the stream,

   Where anchored swings my tiny boat.

The day is one to drowse and dream

   And list the thrush’s throttling note.

When music from his bosom bleeds

Among the river’s rustling reeds.

No ripple stirs the placid pool,

   When my adventurous line is cast,

A truce to sport, while clear and cool,

   The mirrored clouds slide softly past.

The sky gives back a blue divine,

And all the world’s wide wealth is mine.

A pickerel leaps, a bow of light,

The minnows shine from side to side.

The first faint breeze comes up the tide—

I pause with half uplifted oar,

While night drifts down to claim the shore.

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 20th, Thursday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Charles W. Chesnutt, African American writer and activist. He was born in 1858, a few years before the start of the civil war, to free-born parents in Ohio. His parents were of mixed race, resulting in Chesnutt’s light complexion. The mystery surrounding who his grandfathers were, would lead to Chesnutt’s life-long fascination with miscegenation, or mixed-race persons. Struggling to identify with racial groups would become central theme of his work. 

Chesnutt was a lawyer in addition to being a writer, since even back then, writing usually only paid very small bills. Being a professional lawyer was trying, but Chesnutt was fortunate enough to carve out a niche for himself as a court stenographer, making a somewhat lucrative career out of the business.

Chesnutt who said, “The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe”, wrote short stories and novels. Many of his short stories were published by The Atlantic Monthly over a period of 20 years. The success of his stories in magazines allowed him to publish several novels which did well critically.  

He was one of the first authors to discuss the hierarchy that was emerging among the formerly freed slaves and newly-freed slaves. His work allowed readers to better understand life post-slavery and to reach a more just, if not sympathetic, viewpoint. 

And today is the birthday of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, English biochemist, one of the discoverers of vitamins. He showed an early predilection for reading and writing, but when his mother gave him a small microscope as a gift, he was quickly spending his childhood days collecting “specimens” from the nearby seashore to look at through his microscope. 

In school, Hopkins did very well, but still hadn’t made up his mind on what he wanted to do. He tried on a college chemistry course, and ended up doing so well that he was offered an assistant job by toxicologist Thomas Stevenson. This was Hopkins introduction to the effects of chemicals on the human body and his work with Stevenson was used in a handful of legal cases.

Intrigued by the cross between biology and chemistry, he went back to school and got a degree in medicine, so that at age 32 he was teaching physiology ad toxicology at Guy’s Hospital in London. But it still wasn’t quite what he wanted. When he was offered a position at Cambridge to study the chemical aspects of physiology, he jumped at the change of pace. 

While at Cambridge, surrounded by fellow researchers, he helped to discover how lactic acid works in the body as well as the amino acid tryptophan, which Americans generally associate with Thanksgiving Day turkey. 

But it wasn’t until he was in his 50s that he did the work that would earn him a joint Nobel-Prize in 1929.

Around 1911 Hopkins began a series of feeding experiments. He fed young rats a diet of pure proteins, fats, carbs, minerals and water, thinking this would be the most efficient diet. However, he was proved massively incorrect. The rats instead were stunted in their growth and became sickly. This, he concluded, meant there were other unidentified substances in whole foods that were essential for growth and survival. He called these “accessory food factors.” We know these as vitamins.

His work on vitamins indeed proved vital. Armed with the rudimentary knowledge of vitamins, food rationing was looked at with a new lens. During the food shortages of WWI, officials strove to make sure rations included food that had some nutritional content, and food companies began “enriching” their products such as flour and margarine with vitamins. 

Playgrounds

Laurence Alma-Tadema

In summer I am very glad

We children are so small,

For we can see a thousand things

That men can't see at all.

They don't know much about the moss

And all the stones they pass:

They never lie and play among

The forests in the grass:

They walk about a long way off; 

And, when we're at the sea,

Let father stoop as best he can

He can't find things like me.

But, when the snow is on the ground

And all the puddles freeze,

I wish that I were very tall,

High up above the trees.

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 19th, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is Juneteenth. On this day in 1865 in Galveston Texas, Union Army General Gordon Granger read “General Order No. 3” from the top deck of Ashton Villa.

It had been two years since Lincoln had given the Emancipation Proclamation, and this was the first the slave population was hearing of their freedom. General Granger had arrived with 2000 troops to enforce the freeing of all the slaves. The beginning of his speech went like this: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves…”

Of course, equality for slaves wasn’t as easy as the General Order No. 3 would make it sound, but that first Juneteenth was nonetheless was celebrated with dancing in the streets. 

Juneteenth would be celebrated in following years by freed slaves primarily in Texas. As the original 250000 former Texas slaves passed on the celebration to their family members and migrated to different states, they took with them traditions of Juneteenth Independence Day. The Civil Rights Movement helped to spread the celebration of the day as well. 

In 1980 Texas made Juneteenth an official state holiday. 43 out of the 50 United States have followed in a similar vein, recognizing the day as a state holiday or day of observance, and there are a handful of organizations campaigning to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

Just as a side note before I continue: traveling through South American has made me realize how little we study the continent, its countries and its history. So today we’re looking at a national icon of Uruguay. 

Today is the birthday of José Gervasio Artigas, a military man and hero of Uruguayan independence. 

He was born in Montevideo, the capital of what is now Uruguay, in 1764 to Spanish descended parents. His mother came from a wealthy family, but his father knew what it was like to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. As such, José had a strong respect for the working poor. 

Also from his father, José inherited a strong sense of independence. His parents enrolled him in Colegio de San Bernardino to study religion in anticipation of a career in the Church, but José quickly rebelled against the school’s strict disciplinary policies. He left school at the age of 12 and went to work on a family farm. He encountered and worked with expert horsemen and livestock drivers, called gauchos, as well as South American natives. He was impressed by the work ethic of both groups. 

José led troops in the Brazilian, Uruguayan and Argentinian struggles for independence against Spain and Portugal. As the war against the external powers wound down, Artigas rose in influence and power in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was well-versed in democracy and government. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “The Social Contract” were two of his favorites. 

He was a bit too well-versed in democracy for the financially elite of Montevideo. While at the lead Artigas redistributed some land, giving it to freed slaves and Uruguay’s poor. This was a final straw for the elites of Montevideo who exiled Artigas. 

José Gervasio Artigas who said, loosely, “We can expect nothing if it is not from ourselves.” (“Nada podemos esperar si no es de nosotros mismos”) remained in the hearts of the people however and when he passed away, his remains were brought back to Montevideo to be interred. There are numerous parks, schools, and monuments in his honor across the globe, including one in Washington, D.C.; Rome, Italy; and Bucharest, Romania to name a few. His birthday, today, is a national holiday in Uruguay. 

Amores (I)

E. E. Cummings

your little voice 

                              Over the wires came leaping 

and i felt suddenly 

dizzy 

          With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers 

wee skipping high-heeled flames 

courtesied before my eyes 

                                                or twinkling over to my side 

Looked up 

with impertinently exquisite faces 

floating hands were laid upon me 

I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing 

up 

Up 

with the pale important 

                                                stars and the Humorous 

                                                                                                moon 

dear girl 

How i was crazy how i cried when i heard 

                                                                              over time 

and tide and death 

leaping 

Sweetly 

               your voice

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 18th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, sometimes referred to as Princess Anastasia. Born in 1901, she was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar. 

Anastasia’s birth was a grave disappointment to her parents. The tsarina’s biological clock was ticking and instead of a male heir, they had produced a fourth girl. Fortunately, the birth of her brother Prince Alexei three years later spared Anastasia of any lasting resentment. 

With the focus off Anastasia and onto her sickly brother, she was free to behave as mischievously as she wished. According to governesses and palace guests, Anastasia was not a demure and proper princess, and preferred to run about and play tricks on the servants and her sisters.

Contrary to popular mythology, Anastasia was a full-fledged teen of 17 at the time of her murder, not a child of ten or eleven. In fact, all of the Romanov children were adults or teens at their death in 1918.

Seven remains of the Romanov family were recovered in 1991 but did not include Anastasia and Alexei. There had already been mass speculation about the fate of the children, Russian Royalists hoping and surmising that the youngest children had been spared or escaped. Women claiming to be Anastasia had come forward in decades prior, hoping to be embraced by Anastasia’s relatives, many of whom sat upon thrones throughout Europe.

However, in 2007 not far from the first Romanov gravesite, the remains of Alexei and Anastasia were discovered, finally putting to rest any question about the fate of the Romanov family.  

Today is the birthday of Sylvia Porter, American writer and economist. A native New Yorker, she was attending Hunter College in New York when Black Tuesday occurred in 1929. Her mother had invested about $30,000 overall into the stock market in the ‘20s and lost everything during the crash. Sylvia Porter had been studying English and switched majors to Economics hoping to understand the current American financial state.

Upon graduating she was able to finagle an assistant position with a small investment firm where she worked 12-hour days, gaining first-hand knowledge of the market’s idiosyncrasies. She pursued an MBA at New York University in the little time she had leftover.

As a woman, she was not readily welcomed into the male-dominated finance sector. So she made space for herself. At age 22, she convinced The New York Post to let her write a finance column three days a week. Her aim was to translate the Wall Street happenings for the common American. She wrote under the name S.F. Porter, knowing she had a better shot at being taken seriously if she left out her gender to the readership.

The column proved a success and The New York Post promoted her the financial editor a few years later. Porter published her first financial book for the common American in 1939 at the age of 26. 

When finance officials found out S.F. Porter was a woman, they tended to take greater offense at her criticism and retaliate with personal attacks. But Sylvia remained resolute.  She said herself “I've always been independent, and I don't see how it conflicts with femininity.”  The US Secretary of the Treasury, upon hearing S.F. Porter was a woman, took an alternate viewpoint. He sent Sylvia a bouquet of roses and admitted some of her barbs toward him were justified. 

Sylvia Porter became a staple in the financial world continuing to publish popular books on finance throughout her career. She was a sought after financial journalist for newspapers, magazines and periodicals and even gave advice to President Lyndon B. Johnson on the appointment of members of the Federal Reserve Board. 

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, 

Some say in ice. 

From what I've tasted of desire 

I hold with those who favor fire. 

But if it had to perish twice, 

I think I know enough of hate 

To say that for destruction ice 

Is also great 

And would suffice

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 17th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Ruth Graves Wakefield, American chef and inventor of the most popular cookie in America: the chocolate chip cookie. After graduating in 1924 from what is now known as Framingham State University, with a degree from the Department of Household Arts, Ruth lectured and worked as a dietician in the Massachusetts town. 

In 1930, Ruth and her husband bought a small inn in Whitman, MA a popular stop-over town for travelers on their way to the southern Massachusetts coast. They named it the Toll House Inn and had a small restaurant where Ruth cooked homemade meals. It became known for its lobster dinners and delicious desserts, from Boston cream pie to sticky pecan rolls, and of course various cookies. 

The Toll House was very well frequented. It is rumored that Joseph Kennedy, Sr., would visit for dessert and that his daughter Rosemary sent her brother John F. Kennedy Toll House cookies in a care package during his time in the service.

Around 1937, Ruth Wakefield was making a lot of butterscotch-nut cookies at the Toll House Inn and she wanted to mix things up for her guests.  She took a bar of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate, chopped it up, and threw it into a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies. Some sources say Ruth’s cookies were a happy accident, claiming that Ruth put chocolate chunks into cookies thinking the cookie itself would become chocolate. However, Ruth, being an expert baker, would have known how to make dough chocolate if she wanted. 

The new “Toll House” cookie became a favorite of visitors and Ruth published a version of the recipe in the 1938 edition of her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes as well as in a Boston newspaper and a few local newspapers. With Massachusettsans baking their own Toll House cookie like crazy, sales of semi-sweet Nestle bars shot through the roof. Ruth approached Nestle and struck a deal: they would print her Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of their chocolate bars, and Ruth would receive as much Nestle chocolate as she could use. Soon, Nestle was making chocolate bars that were segmented into smaller pieces, eventually selling perfectly proportioned chocolate chips. To this day bags of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips have a recipe for chocolate chip cookies on the back of the bag. 

The Toll House brand remains today as a maker of all kinds of cookies, though the most famous is certainly their chocolate chip. They have tubs of ready-made dough and partner with ice cream brands as the dough in the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream flavor. 

Hundreds of variations exist on the original Toll House recipe, from walnut chocolate chip cookies to chocolate chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chip cookie, in addition to being a true all-American cookie, has become synonymous with those warm-and-fuzzy back-home feelings, with realtors sometimes baking chocolate chip cookies in homes before open houses. And hotel chains like DoubleTree serving warm chocolate chip cookies to guests upon check in.  Is it any wonder there is an annual Chocolate Chip Cookie Day on August 4th in the United States? 

The Caterpillar

Robert Graves

Under this loop of honeysuckle,

A creeping, coloured caterpillar,

I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,

I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

Down beneath grow dandelions,

Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses;

Rooks flap croaking across the lane.

I eat and swallow and eat again.

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;

I munch and nibble unregarding:

Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.

I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm.

When I'm old, tired, melancholy,

I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum

Close by, here on this lovely spray,

And die and dream the ages away.

Some say worms win resurrection,

With white wings beating flitter-flutter,

But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?

Either way I'll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle,

A hungry, hairy caterpillar,

I crawl on my high and swinging seat,

And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.

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 14th, Friday, and there are 200 days left of 2019. Today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

In honor of Father’s Day this weekend, we have a bit about the origins of Father’s Day. Before it was nationally observance in the US, Father’s Day was primarily celebrated by Catholics and Christians on March 19th, the feast day of St. Joseph. In Latin America, Father’s Day is generally still celebrated on March 19th. 

Once Mother’s Day became a tradition in the US, it didn’t take long for people to start thinking a day for fathers would be a good idea too. There were a few townships that nearly made it a ‘thing’ but it wasn’t until Sonora Smart Dodd led the charge that a day for dads gained momentum. 

Sonora Dodd was the eldest of six children who were raised by their father after their mother died in childbirth. After hearing a sermon on Mother’s Day about the day, she felt that a father’s day would be a grand idea. She helped to organize a town-wide celebration in Spokane, Washington through the local YMCA and churches on June 19th in 1910. When Dodd moved away from Spokane, the Father’s Day in Spokane faded out. But when she returned in the 1930s, she picked up the charge again locally, and soon, nationally, with the help of eager retailers who were looking to duplicate the commercial success of Mother’s Day for their male-centric products.

The Father’s Day Council campaigned hard for a Father’s Day. The organization was funded by New York Associated Men’s Wear Retailers, who had plenty to gain from the commercialization of a Father’s Day. The Father’s Day Council is now known as Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council, Inc, still a nonprofit and still surely funded by companies who profit from the day.

Americans were aware of the fact that merchants were leading the charge for Father’s Day and resisted the holiday for several decades.  It wasn’t until a national holiday until Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972. 

A bit of a bummer to know Father’s Day has its roots in materialism. However, as Anna Jarvis noted for Mother’s Day, if you literally wish not to buy into the commercial aspect, the best was to show your appreciation for your parent is a handwritten letter, on any sort of paper. 

And today is the birthday of American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. We took a closer look at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe’s most famous work, last week. Stowe was invited to the White House at the onset of the Civil War, and she and her family met President Lincoln. Stowe’s son claimed that Lincoln greeted Harriet by saying “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." But Stowe herself only ever said she had a “really funny interview with the President.”

The Children's Hour

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,

   When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

   That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

   The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

   And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

   Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

   And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:

   Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

   To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

   A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

   They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

   O'er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

   They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

   Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

   In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

   Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

   Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,

   And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

   In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

   Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

   And moulder in dust away!

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 13th, Thursday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile. 

Today is the birthday of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, more commonly referred to as W.B. Yeats. He was born to an artist father and heiress mother in 1865 in Ireland, but the family moved to London shortly thereafter to benefit his father’s artistic career. 

While in London, Yeats along with his three siblings were informally homeschooled by their mother and father. Their mother regaled the children with Irish stories and folktales, while their father introduced them to geography, chemistry, and natural history, though not in a very cohesive or congruent manner.

By the time Yeats entered a formal school, he kept up with the average children, but showed no signs of the great poet he would become. In fact, he was quite bad at spelling in school, and more interested in biology and zoology than any other subject.

The Yeats family moved back to Dublin in 1880, where life moved along as expected. The children grew, went to real school, and settled into Dublin life. Yeats for his part, spent plenty of time with his father in his father’s studio, and had the chance to meet Dublin’s foremost artists and writers. No doubt the close proximity to successful creatives inspired Yeats to take a similar path. It was during this time he began writing poetry, and his first poem was published in 1885 in the Dublin University paper. 

Influenced by the fairytales his mother had told him as a boy, Yeats had a life-long curiosity in mysticism and the paranormal. His poetry is often stained with folklore and fairy elements as well as gothic tones and symbolic imagery as part of the Symbolism movement of the late 1800s. His poems such as “The Second Coming,” “Sailing to Byzantium” and “The Stolen Child” contain examples of this. His later poems were more grounded in reality, specifically current political and cultural events.

Yeats who said “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking”, attempted just that. He fell in love with Irish Nationalist and suffragist Maud Gonne in 1889 and proposed to her three times over three years, taking her three rejections in stride. She was his muse, despite his love being unrequited, and the two maintained a close friendship throughout their lives. 

Yeats received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for his contributions, though Yeats himself along with plenty of others, saw the award as an acknowledgement of the newly independent Irish Republic on the national stage. 

Lastly, Yeats gives us this line we could all take to heart a bit more: “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”

The Stolen Child
W. B. Yeats 

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

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