October

Are you ready for your bedtime story? Here’s a nice one by Edward Gorey: A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. That’s nice. It rhymes. C is for Clair who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh. What clever pictures. E is for Ernest who choked on a peach. F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. Why are you making that face? G is for George, smothered under a rug. H is for Hector, done in by a thug. Calm down! It’s just a story. I is for Ida who drowned in the lake. J is for James who took lye by mistake. Are you sure you’re alright? K is for Kate who was struck with an axe. L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. You know what? I think we should save this book for another time. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. Happy Halloween!

Economy Block

October 29, 1929 the New York Stock Exchange crashed on what came to be known as “Black Tuesday.” Most historians point to this day as the beginning of the Great American Depression. It’s said that anyone who bought stocks in 1929 and held onto them would see most of his or her adult life pass by before getting back to even. My grandmothers were teenagers in 1929. They completed their educations and began families and careers during the decade that followed. I asked them what that was like, and they said it taught them to be frugal. They both raised vegetable gardens, sewed their own clothing, and bottled fruits, pickles and jellies. If company came to visit, it was an excuse to make a roast and dinner rolls, not an opportunity to go out to eat. They lived by the adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

Coronet Surrounded

France presented the people of the United States with the Statue of Liberty on this day in 1886. Called Lady Liberty for short, her full name is La Liberté éclairant le monde, or Liberty Enlightens the World. She is Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. The crown she wears on her head has seven rays; symbolic of Earth’s seven continents. In her left arm is a tablet inscribed with the date July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet, and her right hand holds aloft a flaming torch. On her pedestal is a plaque with the poem, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Bear Tracks

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858. A sickly, asthmatic child, he spent most of his formative years at home, reading books about the natural world. He grew to become a naturalist and an avid outdoorsman. He was instrumental in creating five national parks in Oregon, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado and Oklahoma. In 1902, while helping to settle a border dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana, Roosevelt attended a bear hunt. It wasn’t a fruitful enterprise. They only encountered one sickly, old bear. They promptly relieved it of its misery. A newspaper cartoonist made light of the outing, drawing the president with his arm around a cuddly bear cub. In no time at all, stuffed children’s dolls known as Teddy Bears were for sale everywhere.

Broken Wheel

New York’s Erie Canal opened on this day in 1825, and made boom towns out of places like Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. From that day until 1880, mule-drawn barges transported goods and people between Lake Erie and the Hudson River, helping New York live earn the nickname “The Empire State.” When I was very young I owned a vinyl copy of Captain Kangaroo’s Treasure House of Best-Loved Songs. It had Row, Row, Row Your Boat, She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain and The Green Grass Grew All Around. It probably drove my parents right out of their heads. But the song I remember best from that album is The Erie Canal: “Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge cause we’re coming to a town. And you’ll always know your neighbor, you’ll always know your pal if you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.”

Coat of Arms

I had my hands full caring for an infant and a toddler when I first heard reports that US forces had invaded Grenada. So maybe I can be forgiven for my initial confusion. I couldn’t imagine why we would attack a city in Spain. I’d confused Grenada (an island nation in the Caribbean) with Granada. On October 19, 1983, a pro-communist coup left Prime Minister Maurice Bishop dead. For several days the country was under curfew; anyone out of doors was shot on sight. Work began on a huge reinforced airstrip for heavy military transport planes. At the request of the Dominican Republic, President Reagan sent US troops to put down the revolution and reinstate the pre-revolutionary constitution. It wasn’t an internationally popular move. But Reagan wasn’t known for doing things because it would please the rest of the world. I wonder what would have happened if Obama had been president then.

Astoria

William Waldorf Astor was angry with his Aunt Caroline; angry enough to build the 13-storey Waldorf hotel next to her home in 1893. His cousin John Astor talked Caroline into moving uptown, and he built the Astoria Hotel on the site of her former mansion in 1897. When the two hotels became one, the Waldorf-Astoria was the largest hotel in the world. The original buildings were demolished to make way for the Empire State Building, but not before giving us this recipe:

Classic Waldorf Salad

1 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts
1 cup coarsely chopped celery
1 cup seedless grapes
2 peeled, cored and coarsely chopped apples
6 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Lettuce

Whisk together the mayonnaise and lemon juice. Add salt and pepper. Mix in the apple, celery, grapes, and walnuts. Serve over a bed of lettuce.