Sunday

Aug. 11, 1996

Making a Fist

by Naomi Shihab Nye

SUNDAY 8/11

Today's Reading:"Making a Fist" by Naomi Shihab Nye from HUGGING THE JUKEBOX, published by E. P. Dutton (1982).

Today is the Feast Day of St. Clare of Assisi, a follower of St. Francis who founded the order of the Poor Clares.

Tonight and early into the morning the Perseid meteor showers peak, one of the year's best displays with about one visible meteor per minute.

It was on this day in 1942 in Leningrad, while the city was besieged by the German army, that Dmitri Shostakovivich's "Leningrad Symphony," his Seventh Symphony, premiered.

Writer Andre Dubus (WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE) was born on this day in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1936.

Writer Alex Haley (ROOTS) was born on this day in Ithaca, New York, in 1921.

It's the birthday of poet Louise Bogan, born in Livermore Falls, Maine, in 1897.

Children's writer Enid Blyton, who created the character Little Noddy, was born on this day in London, in 1897.

Poet Hugh MacDiarmid (A DRUNK MAN LOOKS AT THE THISTLE) was born in Langholm Scotland, in 1892.

American mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart (HAUNTED LADY; THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE) was born on this date in 1876.

Songwriter Carrie Jacobs Bond ("I Love You Truly") was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1862.

Physician Christiaan Eljkman, whose work led to the discovery of vitamins, was born in Nijkerk, Netherlands, in 1858.

Robert G. Ingersoll, "the great agnostic," was born in Dresden, New York, in 1833.

Robert Fulton's steamboat CLERMONT made its first run, up the Hudson River from New York to Albany in 1807.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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