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.

The Holy Bible is not for the prudish or easily offended. It speaks to brute realities. This is especially the case with the Old Testament (Hebrew scriptures). Its various books contain material many would find entirely unsuitable for young, impressionable minds. Consider its controversial subject matter: The enslavement of human beings, horrific acts of sexual violence including gang rape, cringe-worthy incestuous relations between parent and child as well as among siblings, a wide assortment of ghastly bodily mutilations, incidents of mass murder, adultery, prostitution, sorcery, human and animal sacrifice, depictions of animal cruelty, the immolation of individuals and entire populations of towns… the list goes on and on. And then there are the dark, depressing corners of human suffering (Job), the crippling realization that in life nothing matters (Ecclesiastes), and the agonizing despair of living in a godless universe (Psalm 88).

We love our animals. Humans always have. More than mere pets, they become treasured, deeply-beloved family members. As we all know, animals possess remarkable sensitivities and unique intuitive skills that allow their training as allies for humans in need of assistance, such as medical issues. Not surprisingly, since antiquity, humans have also found inventive ways to employ their help in military matters. And to have honored them for their service.

Would you mind my sparing you the trouble of wading through tomes of books recounting the rise of Adolf Hitler and the triumph of the Nazi Party in Germany? How about a handy-dandy crib sheet overview of how this momentous event came to pass?   

‘There must be some way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief. ‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.’  (Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower)

Everyone knows— and many complain—that history books are filled with warfare. Have you ever taken a history course that didn’t require you to examine the causes, course, and consequences of some significant military contest? War is a constant of human history. What did Bob Dylan say when asked by Martin Keller in a 1983 interview with the Twin Cities Reader if he believed in peace? If memory serves, Dylan replied something like, “call the time it takes to reload peace.”

“My theory is limited to utilizing the passions just as Nature gives them and without changing anything. That is the whole mystery, the whole secret of the calculus of passionate attraction. The theory does not ask whether God was right or wrong to endow human beings with particular passions; the societary order utilizes them without changing anything and just as God has given them.”

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing. And when humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopia.” (Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism)

Over many years of reading, I began to notice things of historical importance (at least to me) occurring on the same day: November 22. This led to jotting down my periodic discoveries on a notepad, and in no time a list began taking shape. Then the idea presented itself of transforming my growing roster of ‘happenings’ into a short volume—the way others have written books of consequential years. This TRivia posting reflects that aspiration and offers two samples of what I’ve been collecting.