When I saw what had happened on Sept. 25s in history, I amended yesterday's diary's title because, well, today's celebrated events involve American institutions too.
Submitted for your approval today are introduction of 10 amendments (guess which) to the Constitution, the first public demonstration of "I don't want to get up from my chair to do this," a groundbreaking, the birth of an American literary icon and the birth of an American cinematic icon.
For William Faulkner, born on Sept. 25, 1897, as William Falkner, and writer of sentences longer than some of my diaries, it sometimes seems.
And for Ring Lardner, whose genius was cut abysmally short when he died on Sept. 25, 1933.
If I didn't have room for Faulkner or Lardner, and I didn't even include the births of Ethel Rosenberg or Emily Post (until that aside), today must really be jam-packed, eh?
Put it this way: Each of today's celebrated happenings could fill a library with primary, secondary and ancillary material. Our America, the America I grew up with and many of you did as well, has been made richer, safer, more fun and more civil by what has happened today over the years.
Since I already spoiled the first event, I won't go into great detail about it. Happy reading, and here's hoping the next administration doesn't take so many as suggestions rather than rules.
The second event, the results of which have come to be arguably the pinnacle of laziness, began with boats. Today, while the remote control is most closely associated with the television, the bloody things are all over the place, and we've grown so attached to them mentally and physically that most of us will, when we want to change the channel and cannot find the remote, leave the undesired channel on while we look for the device that's supposed to make the task easier.
With the impending demise of beloved Yankee Stadium, which even fans of "whoever's playing the Yankees" will miss, the American League's other old-time gem becomes that much more special.
I spent four years in Rhode Island in the 1990s, and the love of residents of that state and Massachusetts for their baseball team is palpable. The Boston Garden was beloved, and so too Fenway Park, construction on which began 97 years ago today.
You know the saying so-and-so famous person "sat here" or "walked here" or whatever?
Yeah. Well, at Fenway Park, the list of famous people who played there, whether concerts or games, is pretty long.
I have never been to Fenway, just as I never stepped foot in the Boston Garden, which closed about a month after my first year of high school.
But a building's presence extends beyond its natural boundaries. Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park are more than just structures; they are cultures. Most reasonably eduted baseball fans know the geography of Fenway Park, from the Pesky Pole to the Green Monster.
And though it is not the shining beacon of maintenance it was in days of old, this stadium, which has lived long enough to see World Series through an 86-year drought, is still such a comforting, familiar home even to those of us who have never attended a game there, run the bases, ordered a hotdog.
How can that be? How can something be so warm and inviting (as long as you're not the team playing the Red Sox that day) when your next breath in its hallowed presence will be your first?
The answer, if there is a logical one, is in the shared history Fenway has with so many of us. Even if you have no interest in baseball, you can appreciate the history here:
The history goes back to before baseball was integrated. Oddly enough, the Red Sox held a tryout at Fenway Park for Jackie Robinson in April 1945. But with only management in the stands, someone yelled "Get those [moral superiors] off the field," according to a reporter who was there that day. Two years later, Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black player of the 20th century to play in the major leagues.
(I think the phrase in brackets more appropriately communicates the identity of the people referenced.)
And if you can appreciate the significance of Ted Williams, the last man to hit over .400 in a season, you can appreciate that Williams:
speaking during his 1966 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, laments that Satchel Page, Josh Gibson and other African-American players weren't given the same recognition.
While we're on the subject of baseball's integration, have a read. History hurts us most when the present doesn't reflect learning from that past. And we learned (though not enough) from that.
Shel Silverstein was born 78 years ago today.
His most famous book, The Giving Tree was shopped for four years before it found a home.
Now it finds a home in nearly every library in the country, many in other countries, and homes, apartments and backpacks from the Aleutian Islands to the Florida Keys.
I wonder sometimes how many trees have been felled in the name of printing The Giving Tree. Would they mind the sacrifice? "But you're going to be about a book where a fellow tree sacrifices for his boy," I imagine someone saying.
Sometimes the trees understand. Sometimes they want boys of their own so the sacrifice will mean more. And sometimes they rightly decline the chopper invitation, preferring instead to stay put and dance to the wind.
(Anyone taking bets on how weird my kids are gonna be?)
But if the trees are anything like the one in the book, their goal is to serve and protect, so to speak. They ask not what the boy will do for them but what they can do for the boy. They are the boy's caretakers when he is young and his adult children and friends when he is old.
I've often thought there was something missing from The Giving Tree. I think the boy ought to plant apple seeds near his tree so other children, perhaps his, can have their own trees.
But this would violate the book's meaning: sometimes the cycle simply ends. Sometimes we do not perpetuate our world. In this country, where nonrenewable energy has been the rule rather than the exception for many decades, that lesson seems to be reflected rather sharply, if not followed like it is how things should be.
The Wind in the Willows eventually earned a sequel, The Willows in Winter. I wonder if Giving Back to the Tree will ever be published, or if its prospective writers also feel that something about the firm message of its parent book would be disrupted.
My father likes to tell me that the promotional stills for Superman had to be redone because Christopher Reeve had gained 30 pounds of muscle for the movie.
Reeve, who was born 56 years ago today, was 6'4" and 190 pounds when he landed the title role in the movie:
The well-bred son of Northeastern intellectuals, Reeve graduated from Cornell University and seemed headed toward a career in sophisticated drama when he entered Juilliard. But in 1977, just 25 and coming off a part opposite Katharine Hepburn on Broadway, he won the widely coveted role of Superman. ''When we met him,'' recalls executive producer Ilya Salkind, ''he was a string bean!'' Six foot four and no more than 190 pounds, Reeve bulked up, adding muscle to match his all-American looks. ''He had that smile which said, 'You think I'm getting by with this?!''' recalls frequent costar Ned Beatty. ''I always loved that.''
Reeve starred in Superman, with Marlon Brando playing his father, Jor-El. And the similarities don't end there.
Reeve was an accomplished stage actor before he tried Hollywood, having completed his senior year of college at Juilliard -- and getting his degree from Cornell. (True story.)
Brando was an accomplished stage actor/screamer/whisperer before his big-screen debut.
In his later years, Reeve championed stem cell research, in no small part because of his almost complete paralysis, which he fought through therapy and overcame somewhat.
In his mid years, Brando stood up for Native Americans. Many of you have probably heard of his response to his Best Actor win, but this might surprise:
According to a news account, in a 1974 ceremony, Brando turned over the deed to 40 acres he owned in the Santa Monica Mountains to Indian representatives, apologizing "for being 400 years too late." Hank Adams, of the Survival of American Indians Association of Tacoma, received the deed.