| Old Blue
by William Stafford
Some day I'll crank up that Corvette, let it
mumble those marvelous oil-swimming gears
and speak its authority. I'll rock its big wheels
till they roll free onto the drive. Nobody can
stop us then: loaded with everything, we'll pick up
momentum for the hill north of town. Mona,
you didn't value me and it's too late now.
Steve, remember your refusal to go along on
those deals when you all opposed me?—you had
your chance. Goodby, you squealers and grubbies;
goodby, old house that begins to leak, neighbors
gone stodgy, days that lean casually grunting
and snoring together. For anyone who ever needs
the person they slighted, this is my address: "Gone."
William Stafford, “Old Blue” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1991, 1998 by William Stafford and the Estate of William Stafford. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Kim Stafford. (buy now) The New York City Board of Health established a cholera hospital on this date in 1849. The city was in the middle of its second cholera epidemic; the first one had swept through New York in 1832, killing thousands. The disease — which could kill within hours of its first symptoms — is caused by a bacterium that is found in contaminated food and water, but people didn't know that in 1849. What they did observe was that it seemed to strike the lower classes hardest, and tore through tenements, where immigrants lived in crowded conditions. Doctors did suspect that filth played a role, but they also blamed "irregularities and imprudence in the mode of living, and mental disturbance." In 1850 New York's population was more than 515,000, and over half of these were foreign-born. Most of them lived in tenement buildings which were dark, overcrowded, and spartan at best. Water had to be carried from an outdoor pump, which often froze in the winter. Pigs roamed the streets. Even though many of the tenants kept their apartments clean, the buildings were often overrun with mice, rats, and roaches. One of the poorest neighborhoods in New York at that time was known as the Five Points. It was primarily home to immigrants, especially the Irish, and was notorious for gambling dens, street gangs, and prostitution. It was so notorious, in fact, that Dickens had heard of it and insisted on visiting it when he came to New York. He described the Five Points in colorful detail in his American Notes, writing, "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays ..." He concluded, "All that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here." The first case of the 1849 cholera epidemic was in the Five Points. Some of the well-to-do believed that cholera was God's punishment for their immoderate, intemperate foreign lifestyle. The New York Tribune, in an 1849 article about the epidemic, opined, "The condition of that den of filth and iniquity at this time was quite sufficient to breed any epidemic of the most virulent character." The rich could — and did — leave the city during the epidemic, but the Irish, Italian, and African-American poor could not, and the epidemic killed more than 5,000 people. It was on this day in 1717 that the French playwright and poet Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille for insulting the government (books by this author). He was a young man at the time and a relatively unknown writer. His father had encouraged him to become a lawyer, but Voltaire hated practicing law, so he spent all his time writing satirical poetry instead, poking fun at his political enemies, including the Duke of Orleans. When the Duke read one of the privately circulated poems he had Voltaire thrown into prison for 11 months. Voltaire used the opportunity to begin writing his first play, and when he got out of prison a year later he produced a series of successful plays that made him one of the most popular writers in Europe. He spent the rest of his life in and out of exile from France, speaking out against political and religious repression. He said, "People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities." It is the birthday of writer and broadcaster Louis "Studs" Terkel (books by this author), born in the Bronx, New York (1912). His family moved to Chicago when Terkel was 10 years old and his parents ran rooming houses. Terkel remembers all different kinds of people moving through the rooming houses — dissidents, labor organizers, religious fanatics — and that that exposure helped build his knowledge of the outside world. In 1934 he attended the University of Chicago and graduated with a law degree, but he soon fell into radio broadcasting, working first on radio soap operas, then hosting news and sports shows, and ultimately landing his own show, where he played music and interviewed people. He is best known for his powerful interviews of ordinary people, which became a series of successful books, including Division Street: America (1967), Hard Times (1970), Working (1974), and Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who've Lived It (1995). His last book, PS: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening, was released just after Terkel's death in 2008. He was 96. Terkel said, "Why are we born? We're born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we're born and we die? We're born to live. One is a realist if one hopes." Today is the birthday of poet Adrienne Rich (books by this author), born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1929. Both her parents loved books, and her father, a doctor, encouraged her to write poems even when she was just a young girl. So she studied the poets in her father's library—all of them men—and she adopted their conventional, formal style to write about feminism and sexuality and identity. Rich wrote two dozen volumes of poetry, including A Change of World (1951), and Diving Into the Wreck (1973). She also published several books of prose. She passed away in 2012 from complications of rheumatoid arthritis. Rich said, "You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it," and "Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone." On this date in 1763, James Boswell (books by this author) and Samuel Johnson (books by this author) met for the first time. Johnson, 53, was a well-known man of letters, and he had recently finished a momentous project: a 42,000-word dictionary of the English language, which he produced almost single-handedly. Boswell, who was 22, admired Johnson immensely. He began frequenting the author's favorite bookshop and one day the two were introduced. They got off to a rocky start, as Johnson could be prickly, but Boswell persisted. Over time Johnson began to warm to the young man. A big journal-keeper, Boswell took meticulous notes in shorthand whenever the two were together and would often provoke Johnson into talking about himself. At one point Johnson, annoyed, said, "Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both." They still enjoyed each other's company, and in 1773 Johnson joined Boswell for a tour of the Scottish Highlands. After Johnson died Boswell published an account of their trip, called The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785). The journal ended up being the first installment of Boswell's magnum opus, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). It's been called the greatest biography in the English language. The United States Congress passed theSedition Act of 1918 on this date. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer spearheaded the law expanding on of the Espionage Act of 1917 which made it a federal crime to pass along information that would interfere with the military's involvement in the First World War. The series of amendments called the Sedition Act took this a step further, making it illegal to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, [...] or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States." It also gave the Postmaster-General permission to refuse to deliver mail that was similarly seditious. One high-profile prosecution under the Sedition Act of 1918 was that of Eugene V. Debs. He was a socialist and a labor organizer and had run for president on four occasions. In June 1918, a month after the Sedition Act passed, Debs gave an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio. He was promptly arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He appealed the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction on the grounds that he had knowingly acted to impede the war effort. The court ruled that in certain circumstances First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly could be restricted. The act was repealed on December 13, 1920. Debs was released the following year after President Harding commuted his sentence. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 