Francis Hopkinson, poet, judge, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, sure knew how to throw a party. In the incredible short space of four or five days, he put together the mother of all birthday bashes. And whose birth called for such massive festivities? Hopkinson, along with thousands of fellow Pennsylvanians, wanted to celebrate twin birthdays—the birth of the nation (it was July 4 after all) and their brand new federal government, the nation having recently ratified the freshly minted Constitution.

In my ongoing effort to familiarize others with the goings on of the Supreme Court of the United States, I’d like to present something of interest related to life within the Marble Temple.

Today’s topic pertains to breaking a race barrier at the Court.

I came across the following while rummaging through my papers this morning. If memory serves, I was asked by departmental administrators to offer some sort of reassuring commentary to the events that had occurred at the nation’s Capitol the day before.

The tension between Article I and Article II of the Constitution, and the contest between the president and Congress, appeared straight out of the gate. It centered around the question of wartime authority. The contestants engaged in this debate were none other than Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, and James Madison, then serving as a delegate in the House of Representatives.

As America’s school children return to the classroom this month, I am mindful this morning of the singular importance of what takes place between students and their teachers. Who can minimize or deny the significance of what transpires when learning’s magical force grabs hold of a young person’s imagination? When the intellect has been inspired? Who can foresee where that might lead?

Feeling a little adventurous and open to a story you’ve probably never heard of? You’ve come to the right place. Why not settle into your chair, take another sip of coffee, and cozy up to a tale that might remind you of a more familiar rural outlaw—Robin Hood. Not the sanitized Disneyfied or televised one but the version closer to the old medieval legend, as seen in Hugh Jackman’s summer film, The Death of Robin Hood. 

What an amazing period to have lived in. What an extraordinary generation of contemporaries. What an astonishing place, England, to call home. The years of Thomas More’s remarkable life were crowded with events and individuals of tremendous consequence to the world’s future. And he lived smack-dab at the center of it all.

Milli Vanilli, the pop duo from Germany and MTV sensation of the late ‘80s, did not invent the art of the hoax. Once Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were exposed as mere lip-syncers, their boat of fame was sunk. But their act also wasn’t the most consequential ship of fools to sail the waters of twentieth-century hoaxes.

The first thing to note about Justice Holmes is his lengthy life span. His grandmother could tell him stories from personal memories of the Revolutionary War. The great Ralph Waldo Emerson had been a close family friend as well as something of an intellectual mentor—as a Harvard undergraduate, Holmes had written a paper attacking Plato’s idealist philosophy which Emerson critiqued. “When you strike at a king,” Emerson wrote, “you must kill him.”

He stood 9 feet 9 inches tall and was encased in bronze armor from head to toe. Goliath of Gath, the Philistine’s champion warrior, was a frightful monstrosity of a man. His body armor of overlapping bronze scales weighed 5,000 shekels—approximately 126 pounds—far more than that of a Roman legionary’s kit (60 pounds). Goliath wielded an exceptionally thick and solid staff of a spear whose iron spearhead weighed a massive six hundred shekels—approximately 16.5 pounds. Rounding out his imposing combat gear, the giant wore a bronze helmet, bronze greaves, and carried a bronze javelin which he slung across his shoulders. He even had a shield-bearer to walk before him to ward off ranged attacks. 

As predictable as May following April, this year’s electoral season is witnessing another round of political wrangling regarding the size and scope of the US Supreme Court. I thought I’d provide some historical context to inform that discussion.

The topic has often come up while conversing with friends about what books we’d wish to have as companions were we to find ourselves, like Robinson Crusoe, marooned on some deserted island. It’s a difficult assignment, a bit like trying to list my favorite Beatle or Dylan songs. If sorely pressed, however, I would have to admit that the following twenty titles would offer endless hours of pleasurable company.

Despite all his remarkably good fortune in life, one does occasionally feel a certain pity for Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. While the sprained ankle he’d suffered at the Manila terminal beatdown had healed, he was compelled to fly ahead of the Beatles’ arrival for their American tour to mend a few fences damaged by John Lennon’s interview with Maureen Cleave. If you’ll recall from my second post, the outspoken Beatle had registered young peoples’ boredom with Christianity through a comparison to their mania for the Beatles. His statement, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now….” 

One way to view the eye-popping psychedelic front cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is to see it as a photograph of a funeral ceremony. And that would be entirely fitting given the directional mindset of the group in the wake of their summer 1966 World Tour. West Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States had been a wounding experience. The group wanted to put an end to the Mop Top, Fab Four, Beatlemania image that had fueled their phenomenal rise to the heights of fame and fortune. They had grown up and grown out of that stage. Sgt. Pepper was laying that corpse to rest.

For those who didn’t find the Beatles their cup of tea, living through the ‘60s must have been a painful experience. It was impossible to find a place to hide or a trap door to escape from their presence. The Beatles saturated global culture. Even in the Soviet Union, where Beatlemania was proscribed as a “capitalist disease,” Beatle music proliferated the black market. Shockwaves of pure bliss raced through the youth culture of Estonia when, on January 27, 1966, Estonian State Radio actually broadcast an unprecedented eight Beatle songs. 

Unlike Dickin medal recipients Simon the cat and Chips the dog, some of the heroes of the Second World War did walk on two legs. One particular unit of any nation’s armed forces that attracted an uncommon amount of attention consisted of the men and women who excelled as snipers. They became the stuff of legend and fodder for propaganda, a few even achieved box-office acclaim as celebrated stars in award-winning motion pictures. 

I wonder sometimes about the total number of hours, days, months, and years I’ve logged in Beatleland since watching their Sunday evening appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Like millions of others, I was hooked instantly. Still am 62 years later. 

Back in my days as a classroom history instructor, I was afforded the luxury of creating many new courses for the department’s curricular menu. That show of confidence by administration and the gift of autonomy it bestowed was an aspect of my job I really liked. Over four decades, that license gave rise to classes on a wide range of subjects—The Vietnam War, The ‘60s, Medieval and Russian History, The Cold War, Utopia, Reel History, The Second World War, Greek and Roman History, The History of the Constitution and the Supreme Court, Meet the Beatles, The Civil Rights Movement and the like. One prospective course I flirted with but never found opportunity to offer involved the body of literature written by people in jail. Prison literature, but with a more humorous course title than that to attract student interest. (As evidenced above).

Did Abraham Zapruder make what is arguably the most important film of the twentieth century? Thanks to his steady hand, and the steadying influence of his loyal secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, who spotted her vertigo-disabled boss atop a four-foot-high cement pedestal on the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, posterity has been given a front row seat to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

I honestly remember this exchange between me and my mother when I was a child in single digits:

Tim: “Where did I come from?”
Mom: “You were born under a rock.”

 What I don’t recall is whether what followed was the woozy feel of vertigo or a warm blanket of comfort.