A few days from the church year -
Feb 22 So this is kind of interesting, the Wikipedia webpage gives this day to Eric Liddell; the Episcopal Church webpage gives it to Margaret of Cortona -
+ Eric Liddell – that’s right, the Chariots of Fire guy. He was born in China to Scottish parents who were missionaries. At school in England he became an Olympic class runner, though his career was hampered by his refusal to run on Sunday. After finishing schooling, he returned to China as a missionary, where he died in a Japanese interment camp. His wife and three daughters had left China to stay with family in Canada.
+ Margaret of Cortona, on the other hand, was born in 1247 in Italy. Her mother died and her father remarried, but Margaret and the stepmother did not get along. At age 17 she became the mistress of a wealthy young man and lived with him for 10 years. When his favorite dog came home without him one afternoon, she was troubled and followed the dog into the woods to discover the body of her lover, who had been murdered. She tried to return to her family, but the stepmother would not have her; she then turned to the Franciscan Friars of Cortona, where her son eventually became a friar. She fasted, avoided meat, and subsisted on bread and vegetables. Eventually she joined the Third Order of Saint Francis. She is the patron saint of the falsely accused, hoboes, homeless, insane, orphaned, mentally ill, midwives, penitents, single mothers, reformed prostitutes, stepchildren, and tramps. (Sounds like a song by Cher!)
Feb 23 Polycarp – early Bishop, Church Father, Martyr. His name means “much fruit” in Greek. And I love this, one source dates his death to “Saturday, Feb 23, c.155 or 156"!
Feb 24 St Matthias – he was chosen, by casting lots, to replace Judas after he had killed himself. It says they chose someone who had been with them through the time of Jesus’ ministry, but Matthias is not mentioned anywhere in the gospels. So I guess the word is to be ready to step in at a moments notice. Sort of like the 12th man on the football team. “According to Nicephorus Matthias first preached the Gospel in Judaea, then in Aethiopia (by the region of Colchis, now in modern-day Georgia) and was there stoned to death. An extant Coptic Acts of Andrew and Matthias, places his activity similarly in "the city of the cannibals" in Aethiopia. A marker placed in the ruins of the Roman fortress at Gonio (Apsaros) in the modern Georgian region of Adjara claims that Matthias is buried at that site. The Synopsis of Dorotheus contains this tradition: ‘Matthias preached the Gospel to barbarians and meat-eaters in the interior of Ethiopia, where the sea harbor of Hyssus is, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun.’ Another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the local populace, and then beheaded. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Matthias died of old age in Jerusalem.” So maybe it was all good, maybe not!
Feb 25 John Roberts (not that one!) this John Roberts was born in Wales, became a proest in the Bahamas, and then served with Native Americans in Wyoming and Colorado. Roberts became known for his interest in, and support for, traditional customs. Roberts also translated the Bible into the local languages.
Feb 26 Emily Morgan (just put that in to see if you were paying attention – this was not “our” Emily, but an Emily Malbone Morgan.) She and some friends established The Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, a group that set up “vacation homes” where working women and their children could get away for a holiday.
Feb 27 George Herbert – He was a Welsh born (1953) poet and priest in the Church of England. He wrote Let All the World In Every Corner Sing. Many of his poems were visually designed with longer and shorter lines to look like what they were about – butterflies, altars, etc.
Ok – some days from the earth/world calendar -
Feb 22
+ First Woolworth Store opens (1879). Interestingly the store quickly failed. The Woolworth brothers then opened a store, using the same sign, in a different location on July 18. The stores declined in the 1980, and then, as the sporting goods department continued to do well, morphed into Foot Locker.
Feb 23
+ John Keats died in 1821. He wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and a number of other “odes”, and “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern”. (For when we get back to indoor dining!)
+ Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in 1940. Apparently Woody didn’t really do anything with the song for three or four years, when he recorded it without the “private property” verse and the “relief office” verse. As with many of Woody’s songs, verses come and go to reflect current situations.
Arlo Guthrie tells a story in concerts on occasion, of his mother returning from a dance tour of China, and reporting around the Guthrie family dinner table that at one point in the tour she was serenaded by Chinese children singing the song. Arlo says Woody was incredulous: "The Chinese? Singing "This land is your land, this land is my land? From California to the New York island?"
On January 20, 2021, Jennifer Lopez performed the song during the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States. She did not include the verses critical of the USA but, performing it as part of a medley with America the Beautiful, interposed in Spanish the words 'one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all', taken from the Pledge of Allegiance, to indicate her support for the rights of Hispanic and Latino Americans, implicitly criticizing their treatment by Donald Trump.
+ 1941, Glenn T Seaborg and team discovered plutonium, a step on the way to nuclear power (and weapons!).
+ Edward Elgar died in 1934. He wrote the Enigma Variations, and so that we could graduate from high school and college - Pomp and Circumstance. Don, don don don, don, don….
Feb 24
+ the German Nazi Party was founded in 1920
+ Steve Jobs was born in 1955.
Feb 25
+ Corazon Aquino became the 11th president of the Philippines. Remember?
+ Muhammad Ali became heavy-weight champion of the world in 1964. He was still named Cassius Clay at the time. Fourteen years later he lost to Leon Spinks. The aging Ali had expected an easy fight, but he was out-boxed by Spinks, who did not tire throughout the bout. Spinks was the only man to take a title from Muhammad Ali in the ring, as Ali's other losses were non-title contests or bouts where Ali was the challenger. Spinks just died on Feb 5 – I seem to recall seeing a quote where he said something like “I’m the champ, but he’s still the Greatest.” Note that Ali won an unapproved rematch seven months later (15 rounds, unanimous decision)
+ birthday of Christopher Wren – English architect, he (and his company) was given the responsibility of rebuilding 52 churches in London following the great fire of 1666, including St Paul’s Cathedral.
Feb 26
+ birthday of Johnny Cash in 1932. The Man in Black! Did I tell you that we have cd’s of Johnny Cash reading the KJV New Testament. It’s kind of fun.
+ and the birthday of John Harvey Kellogg in 1852. Corn Flakes for breakfast today? Or maybe crushed up on your fried chicken?
Feb 27
+ Here’s an eclectic set of birthdays – Ralph Nader 1934, Elizabeth Taylor 1932, John Steinbeck 1902, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 “Listen my children and you shall hear, by the shores of Gitchee Gumee, the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks.” On second thought, I guess I’ll have that chicken cajun style!
+ Ivan Pavlov died in 1936. Is that a bell ringing? Man, I’m hungry!
Feb 28
+ Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme was assassinated on the main street of Stockholm while walking home with his wife from a movie. There were/are at least 12 theories about the murder, but it still remains unsolved.
+ Nylon was invented in 1935
+ Paul Harvey died in 2009. "Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for NEWS!" His real name was Paul Harvey Aurandt. As a young reporter he broke into the Argonne National laboratory outside Chicago to demonstrate what he felt was lax security at the site. He was friends with J Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy and supported McCarthy’s “anti-communist” campaign. His father, Harry Aurandt, was a police officer who was murdered when Paul was just 3 years old. At his funeral, twelve robed members of the Ku Klux Klan arrived late in the service and dropped roses on his casket, though there is no other indication that Aurandt was himself a Klansman.
Page two – Paul Harvey was named to the DeMolay Hall of Fame (a Masonic Youth organization – hey – I was in DeMolay!). He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 from Pres George W Bush. He married Lynne Cooper of St. Louis. They met when Harvey was working at KXOK and Cooper came to the station for a school news program. Harvey invited her to dinner, proposed to her after a few minutes of conversation and from then on called her "Angel," even on his radio show. A year later she said yes.
Page three He always ended, "Paul Harvey ... Good day." or "Paul Harvey ... Good night." The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "And now from the 'For-what-it's-worth' department.…"
And now you know – The……………!
Want a challenge for the week -
1) write an “Ode to the Cornish/Finnish Pasty”
2) write a verse to This Land Is Your Land from a perspective other than your own – ie, a maple tree, an animal on the verge of extinction, an animal not on the verge of extinction (the squirrels in our backyard waiting for us to plant stuff in the garden for them to dig up), the Mars rover Perseverance, an 11 year old (I just read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie about the 11 year old Flavia deLuce), ….
That’s what I got for now…
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