Thursday

Nov. 26, 1998

Shuttle

by Arthur Sze

THURSDAY 11/26

Poem: "Shuttle," by Arthur Sze, from THE REDSHIFTING WEB: POEMS 1970-1998 (Copper Canyon Press, 1998).

It's THANKSGIVING DAY, which began in 1621 with three days of prayer and feasting by the Plymouth colonists, a year after they arrived on the Mayflower. In 1789 President George Washington proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day, and in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made it an annual holiday.

It's the birthday in Hertfordshire, England, 1731, of poet WILLIAM COWPER, who wrote of the everyday joys and sorrows of 18th century British life, often describing country scenes in his poetry in a much more direct, much less flowery style than other writers of the day.

It's the birthday of ELLEN G. WHITE, founder of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, born in 1827 in Gorham, Maine.

It's the birthday of the writer, physician, and women's rights leader MARY EDWARDS WALKER, born in Oswego, New York, 1832. She was a surgeon for the North in the Civil War, and was captured by the Confederates and held in a Richmond, Virginia prison. After the war she was granted the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest decoration for gallantry.

It was on this day in 1942 that the movie CASABLANCA was premiered in New York.

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

 

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