Eric Hanson's Blog, page 14

Jerry Garcia

On this day in 1995 Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist and eminence grise of The Grateful Dead, died of heart failure. He was 53. 25,000 Deadheads attended a celebration of his life in Golden Gate Park. In November 1995 an asteroid was named after him. Garcia once said: "It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness." All these years later, Cherry Garcia is still the favorite flavor

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" was published in the August 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Frost was 41, an age when poets begin to wonder what life might have been like if they'd gone into advertising.

Home Run King

On August 7, 2007, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record of 756 career home runs. He was 43. Bonds had been playing under a cloud ever since it was reported that he'd used performance enhancing steroids beginning in 1998.

When he was the same age former Giant Willie Mays was retired from baseball and seen most often sitting on a golf cart in ads for Interwoven Socks. Say hey!

Emotional Bankruptcy

In August, 1931, F. Scott Fitzgerald published the story Emotional Bankruptcy in the Saturday Evening Post. He was 34. Zelda had been hospitalized for a nervous collapse, his novels weren't selling, and life wasn't as dazzling as it had been just a few years earlier. His work was just as brilliant. It was the audience that had changed, chastened by the Crash, no longer amused by rich people dancing in fountains and drinking champagne from expensive shoes.

Madcap

Writer-director Preston Sturges began writing his memoirs in February 1959 and finished the last chapter on August 6, in his room at the Algonquin Hotel. He died later the same afternoon. He was 60. Sturges appears four times in A Book of Ages.

He came from the American Midwest, but spent most of his childhood traipsing around Europe with his mother, who ran a string of upmarket perfumeries, and her best friend Isadora Duncan. Preston's mother gave the famous dancer the scarf that got tangled i

The Spy Who Couldn't Cook

In August 1942, Julia McWilliams began her new job at the O.S.S., the World War II forerunner of the C.I.A. She was 30. She wore a leopard fur coat to work on cold days, and lived in a tiny two-room apartment in the Brighton Hotel in Washington. For a kitchen she made do with a two-burner hot-plate set on top of the refrigerator in her living room. She wasn't famous for her cooking, but she later would be, after marrying Paul Child and moving to France.

The Final Word on Wine

In August 1978, Robert M. Parker sent the first issue of The Wine Advocate free to 600 subscribers. He would soon become the most influential person in the wine business, writing reviews that caused vintages, appellations and entire wine regions to soar in price––and crash––depending upon his verdict. He tasted wine for the first time on a holiday in France in 1967, when he was 20. He makes one appearance in A Book of Ages.

The Poet Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on this day in 1792, with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father was rich, landed and aristocratic; a baronet born, interestingly enough, in Newark, New Jersey, who'd married two wealthy heiresses in succession. His son Percy was cosseted, rebellious and intellectual. At 18 he was thrown out of Oxford for co-authoring a pamphlet titled "The Necessity of Atheism". At 19 he eloped to Scotland with a 16 year-old girl he'd met in a pub. At 21 he met and fell in love wi

Storyteller

Hans Christian Andersen died on this day in 1875. He was 70 years-old. He'd gone to live with some friends on the coast of Denmark. On the morning he died he was served breakfast in bed, but was found a little while later, still in bed. In his hand was a love letter that had been written to him 45 years before. Like so many of his stories, his own life ended ironically and unrequited. Hans Christian Andersen appears five times in A Book of Ages.

PT 109

On August 3, 1943, John F. Kennedy's PT boat was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. Despite his own injuries, Lt. Kennedy managed to save the lives of most of his crew. He was 26. He'd grown up a child of privilege but dogged by poor health, not unlike the another boy president, Theodore Roosevelt. The hero of the family was always Jack's older brother, Joe Jr., who would die in combat in August, 1944. JFK appears five times in A Book of Ages.