Monday
Jul. 19, 1999
The Moving Van
Poem: "The Moving Van," by Patricia Goedicke from The Tongues We Speak (Milkweed Editions).
It's the birthday in Buckhannon, West Virginia, 1952, of writer JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS, best known for her short story collections like Black Tickets (1979), and Machine Dreams. She is also the author of the novel Shelter (1994), set in 1963 in a West Virginia girls' summer camp.
It's the birthday of DENISE GESS, 1952, Philadelphia, author of the novels Good Deeds (1984) and Red Whiskey Blues (1989).
It's the birthday in Morgantown, West Virginia, 1946 of STEPHEN COONTS, who wrote thrillers. The main character of his novels, Jake Grafton, is described as being "Not handsome, not wise, not witty, not smart. Just [an] average [pilot]."
It was on this day in 1848 that the FIRST WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION began in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and five other women organized it. At the convention three hundred people listened to the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, and voted on the twelve resolutions. Eleven of the twelve resolutions, including this one, passed unanimously: Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her Creator has assigned her.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®