Saturday

Jan. 16, 1999

The Light of Other Days

by Thomas Moore

SATURDAY 1/16

Poem: Thomas Moore (1779-1852), "The Light of Other Days."

It was on this day in 1944 during WWII that GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER took over command of all the Allied Forces in Europe. His first move was to head to London and plan D-Day. Six months later, June 4, 1944, he sent a million men and 4,000 ships across the English Channel to begin the invasion of Europe.

It's mezzo-soprano MARILYN HORNE's birthday, born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, 1934. She broke into singing in 1954 by dubbing the vocals for Dorothy Dandridge in the movie Carmen Jones; the same year she made her opera debut in Los Angeles in The Bartered Bride.

It's zoologist DIANE FOSSEY's birthday, Fairfax, California, 1932. When she was in her early 30s she went to East Africa and met archeologist Dr. Louis Leakey, who inspired her to research apes and gorillas. In 1967 she set up camp in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas. At that time, mountain gorilla numbers had dwindled due to poaching to about 250. Through Fossey's efforts, particularly the publication of her 1982 book Gorillas in the Mist, there are now about 650 in the wild. Fossey was killed in her cabin in Rwanda in December, 1985, and the crime is still unsolved.

It's the birthday of the Canadian poet ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE, born 125 years ago in 1874, Lancashire, England, but who settled in the Canadian Yukon in his 20s and wrote frontier poems like, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew."

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

 

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