03.13.2022 is here. It’s 32 degrees outside. Yikes. March in Florida? It will warm up quickly and life will be back to normal. My sport is billiards, which is an indoor game, so I’ll still play this morning. Today is Jewel Day, Donald Duck Day, National Coconut Torte Day, Ken Day, Good Samaritan Day and Open Your Umbrella Inside Day. Don’t ask why that is a designated day. Now to history: On this day in 1639 Cambridge College was renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard. In 1781 William Herschel sees what he thinks is a “comet” but actually discovered the planet Uranus and in so doing, establishes a new category of celestial jokes. In 1900 In France the length of the working day for women and children was limited by law to 11 hours. Think about that for a little while. On this day in 1943 the Nazis liquidated the Jewish ghetto in Kraków. Oskar Schindler (Schindler’s List), with advance information, saved his workers by keeping them in his factory overnight. Finally, on this day in 1965 Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds because the band moved away from traditional blues; Jeff Beck became his replacement. This day we will visit the grave of the lawyer Clarence Darrow who passed in 1938 at the age of 80. Clarence said, “I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” “The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.” “You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.” I’ll end with this one which tells us what kind of person Mr. Darrow was: “I have lived my life, and I have fought my battles, not against the weak and the poor – anybody can do that – but against power, against injustice, against oppression, and I have asked no odds from them, and I never shall.” Abide.
