Tuesday

May 4, 1999

Sometimes

by Sheenagh Pugh

Broadcast Date: TUESDAY: May 4, 1999

Poem: "Sometimes," by Sheenagh Pugh, from Selected Poems (Seren Books, Poetry Wales Press).

It's DAVID GUTERSON's birthday, author of the 1995 novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, born in Seattle, 1956.

Norman Mailer's war novel, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, was published on this day in 1948, the story of 13 U.S. soldiers stationed on a Japanese-held island in the Pacific.

It's the birthday in 1930 of the American opera singer ROBERTA PETERS. She was just 19 years old and had never sung professionally before when she got a call on five hours notice to step in for another soprano at the Metropolitan—no orchestra rehearsal, only an hour or so of going through stage cues, and a few minutes before curtain with the conductor, and that was it. She sang at the Met for another 35 years.

It's the anniversary of the 1886 HAYMARKET SQUARE RIOT in Chicago, a famous protest in the early years of the labor movement that turned violent. In Chicago, members of the lumber union and workers at the McCormick Harvester plant went on strike, and on May 3, just outside the McCormick plant, police fired on a crowd of strikers, killing four to six men. The next day there was a further clash between about 200 strikers and 180 policemen. Someone threw a bomb at the police, killing seven and wounding many others. Eight union members were charged with inciting violence and put on trial—all were convicted, and four were put to death.

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

 

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