Here we are. It has become the 23rd day of November, 2020. 7.8 billion of us have reached this place in time/space. 200,000 more people will be begin their life today than stop living. The people who share this rock flying through space continues to grow. I’m just trying to put us in context. Life is both precious and precarious. Today we have odd holidays: Doctor Who Day (British TV show), Eat a Cranberry Day, Fibonacci Day (middle ages mathematician), National Cashew Day, National Espresso Day (yum) and Wolfenoot (wolf-a-note). It seems that a 7 year old boy in New Zealand made up a holiday about a gift leaving wolf (think Easter bunny) and somehow it got some traction and now is recognized. I’ll stick with Espresso with some Cashews and later today, some vodka with Cranberry juice. Despite the chaos, life is good. Now to the history of this day. The first to draw my attention happened in 1654 when French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense, mystical vision that marks him for life. That doesn’t tell me a thing. After a few searches the only thing I can find is that it was a “religious” vision. I did look up Pascal quotes and they are excellent: “Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much”. “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Glad I stumbled onto Pascal. In 1887 Notre Dame loses its 1st football game 8-0 to Michigan. That my friends is an excellent trivia question. In 1889, the debut of 1st jukebox (Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco). Finally, in 1921 US President Harding Willis Campell Act (anti-beer bill) forbidding doctors prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes. This day happens to be William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid’s birthday (1859). He killed 8 people and was shot by Pat Garrett when he was 21. This is the day in 1872 that Chief Ten Bear passed. I’m pretty sure you don’t know who he was. A Comanche poet who tried to negotiate peace between his tribe and the United States. I’ll end this post with a quote from Ten Bear “You said that you wanted to put us upon a reservation, to build us houses and make us medicine lodges. I was born where there were no enclosures and everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls.” His grave is in the Fort Sill Oklahoma Post Cemetery. Abide
